Residents of Rushdie Suspect’s Lebanese Village Say Incident Has Little to Do With Them

A view of the town of Yaroun, southern Lebanon August 15, 2022. (Reuters)
A view of the town of Yaroun, southern Lebanon August 15, 2022. (Reuters)
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Residents of Rushdie Suspect’s Lebanese Village Say Incident Has Little to Do With Them

A view of the town of Yaroun, southern Lebanon August 15, 2022. (Reuters)
A view of the town of Yaroun, southern Lebanon August 15, 2022. (Reuters)

Street-side signs in the southern Lebanese village of Yaroun, the ancestral home of the suspect in the stabbing of Salman Rushdie, bear posters of Iran's former supreme leader Khomeini who in 1989 issued a fatwa calling for the author's death.

The logo of Lebanon's Iran-armed Hezbollah group adorns small monuments to its fighters killed during decades of wars with Israel, which borders Yaroun to the east and south.

The mood in the small Lebanese village is apprehensive.

Few want to speak about Friday's attack on Rushdie or about Hadi Matar, the 24-year-old American suspect whose family originally hails from Yaroun, where Hezbollah has strong support.

Locals say the attack on the novelist at a public appearance in New York state has little to do with them.

"There is no information... He was born abroad in America and remains there," local official Riad al-Ridha told Reuters. "No one wants to talk about it because no one knows anything."

Matar, from New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault. An initial law enforcement review of his social media account showed he was sympathetic to Shiite extremism and Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to NBC New York.

The IRGC is a powerful faction that Washington accuses of carrying out a global extremist campaign.

US authorities have not offered any additional details on the investigation, including a possible motive.

Matar's parents emigrated to the United States and he was born and raised there, but his father Hassan Matar returned to Lebanon several years ago, Yaroun Mayor Ali Tehfe told Reuters.

Residents of the village said Matar's parents were divorced and the mother continues to live in the United States.

After the attack, the father locked himself in his home and was refusing to speak to anyone, Tehfe said.

Reuters visited a simple cinder block building where Tehfe said Hassan Matar lived. Two people inside, including a middle-aged man, declined to speak.

Seven people from the town, including four living in the United States and Australia, also declined to speak when asked if they knew Hadi Matar or would condemn his attack, citing the sensitivity of the case and a lack of knowledge on its details.

Rushdie has lived with a bounty on his head since the publication of his 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses," which is viewed by some Muslims as containing blasphemous passages.

Hezbollah, which was founded in 1982 by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and classified by the United States and other Western countries as a terrorist organization, has said it has no information on the attack. Iran's foreign ministry said only Rushdie himself and his supporters were to blame.

Critics of Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon have condemned the attack even as others close to Hezbollah offer support for Khomeini's 1989 edict - a call previously supported by Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Journalist Radwan Akil, a writer for Lebanon's Annahar newspaper, said on Sunday that he supported the implementation of Khomeinei's fatwa against Rushdie. The newspaper said in a statement his opinion "is entirely inconsistent with Annahar's policies which calls for fighting words with words".

Former Annahar editor Gebran Tueni and columnist Samir Kassir, both opponents of Hezbollah and of Syria's dominance in Lebanon, were killed in 2005.



Crops Wither in Sudan as Power Cuts Cripple Irrigation

FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa
FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa
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Crops Wither in Sudan as Power Cuts Cripple Irrigation

FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa
FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa

Hatem Abdelhamid stands amid his once-thriving date palms in northern Sudan, helpless as a prolonged war-driven power outage cripples irrigation, causing devastating crop losses and deepening the country's food crisis.

"I've lost 70 to 75 percent of my crops this year," he said, surveying the dying palms in Tanqasi, a village on the Nile in Sudan's Northern State.

"I'm trying really hard to keep the rest of the crops alive," he told AFP.

Sudan's agricultural sector -- already battered by a two-year conflict and economic crisis -- is now facing another crushing blow from the nationwide power outages.

Since the war between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023, state-run power plants have been repeatedly targeted, suffering severe damage and ultimately leaving farms without water.

Like most Sudanese farms, Abdelhamid's depends on electric-powered irrigation -- but the system has been down "for over two months" due to the blackouts.

Sudan had barely recovered from the devastating 1985 drought and famine when war erupted again in 2023, delivering a fresh blow to the country's agriculture.

Agriculture remains the main source of food and income for 80 percent of the population, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Now in its third year, the conflict has plunged more than half the population into acute food insecurity, with famine already taking hold in at least five areas and millions more at risk across conflict-hit regions in the west, center and south.

The war has also devastated infrastructure, killed tens of thousands of people, and displaced 13 million.

A 2024 joint study by the United Nations Development Programme and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) found that nearly a third of rural households have lost irrigation and water access since the war began.

Without electricity to power his irrigation system, Abdelhamid -- like thousands of farmers across the country -- was forced to rely on diesel-powered pumps.

But with fuel scarce and prices now more than 20 times higher than before the war, even that option is out of reach for many.

"I used to spend 10,000 Sudanese pounds (about four euros according to the black market rate) for irrigation each time," said another farmer, Abdelhalim Ahmed.

"Now it costs me 150,000 pounds (around 60 euros) because there is no electricity," he told AFP.

Ahmed said he has lost three consecutive harvests -- including crops like oranges, onions, tomatoes and dates.

With seeds, fertilizers and fuel now barely available, many farmers say they won't be able to replant for the next cycle.

In April, the FAO warned that "below average rainfall" and ongoing instability were closing the window to prevent further deterioration.

A June study by IFPRI also projected Sudan's overall economic output could shrink by as much as 42 percent if the war continues, with the agricultural sector contracting by more than a third.

"Our analysis shows massive income losses across all households and a sharp rise in poverty, especially in rural areas and among women," said Khalid Siddig, a senior research fellow at IFPRI.