Mikati Determined to Form New Lebanese Govt Despite Obstacles https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3913016/mikati-determined-form-new-lebanese-govt-despite-obstacles
Mikati Determined to Form New Lebanese Govt Despite Obstacles
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati gestures as he attends an interview with Reuters at the government headquarters in downtown Beirut, Lebanon September 30, 2022. (Reuters)
Mikati Determined to Form New Lebanese Govt Despite Obstacles
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati gestures as he attends an interview with Reuters at the government headquarters in downtown Beirut, Lebanon September 30, 2022. (Reuters)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati stressed on Tuesday his determination to proceed with the cabinet formation process despite the many obstacles in his way.
“We are determined to continue work according to the constitution and the nation’s best interest; no one will be allowed to sabotage and obstruct the constitutional process,” Mikati said at the launch of a youth forum in Beirut.
The PM hoped that parliament will succeed in electing a new president within the constitutional deadline, because the existing challenges require cooperation and integration among constitutional institutions.
Last week parliament failed to elect a new head of state to replace President Michel Aoun whose term ends on Oct. 31. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said he would call lawmakers to convene again once they reach consensus over a candidate.
Mikati warned against suspicious attempts aimed at obstructing the implementation of the Taif Accord, which he said helped end the 1975-90 civil war and restore state institutions.
The accord may not be perfect, “but it is at least better than chaos and demagogy,” he added.
The agreement is the “natural framework” that can bring together the Lebanese people under common values, he stated, while stressing the need to implement all of its articles to achieve the higher national interest.
He also suggested that the pact could be adjusted to current times, while preserving its main goal of securing coexistence between the Lebanese people.
Syria’s First Public Trial of Assad-era Officials Opens in Damascushttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5266634-syria%E2%80%99s-first-public-trial-assad-era-officials-opens-damascus
Judges attend a trial session of Atef Najib, a brigadier general and former head of the Political Security Department in Daraa during Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad's rule, who is accused of committing war crimes, at the Palace of Justice, in Damascus, Syria, April 26, 2026. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s First Public Trial of Assad-era Officials Opens in Damascus
Judges attend a trial session of Atef Najib, a brigadier general and former head of the Political Security Department in Daraa during Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad's rule, who is accused of committing war crimes, at the Palace of Justice, in Damascus, Syria, April 26, 2026. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
The first public trial in Syria of officials linked to the rule of former President Bashar Assad opened in Damascus Sunday.
Atef Najib, a former Syrian army brigadier general who was head of the Political Security Branch in southern Syria's Daraa province under Assad and who is also a cousin of the former president, appeared in the courtroom to face charges related to “crimes against the Syrian people,” state-run news agency SANA reported.
Najib was in that position in 2011 when teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a school wall in Daraa were arrested and tortured. The case became a catalyst for mass protests against the repressive policies of Assad's government security forces.
The protests were met by a brutal government crackdown and spiraled into a 14-year civil war that ended with Assad's ouster in December 2024 in a lightning rebel offensive. Assad fled to Russia, while most members of his inner circle also escaped Syria.
Assad himself and his brother, Maher, former commander of the Syrian military's 4th Armored Division — which Syrian opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking, in addition to running its own detention centers — were charged in absentia, along with a number of other former high-ranking security officials.
Najib was the only one of the defendants who was arrested and present in person in court Sunday for a preparatory session in the trial, which will continue next month.
Crowds gathered outside the courthouse to celebrate.
The government of interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has faced criticism over delays in launching a promised transitional justice process. Syria is struggling to heal following 14 years of civil war that left an estimated half a million people dead, millions more displaced, and the country battered and divided.
Authorities now appear to be moving more aggressively to prosecute officials linked to Assad.
Syrian authorities on Friday arrested Amjad Yousef, a former intelligence officer who appeared in a video leaked four years ago that purportedly showed him and his comrades executing dozens of blindfolded and shackled prisoners in the Damascus suburb of Tadamon during the country’s civil war.
Israeli Attacks Kill at Least Four Palestinians in Gazahttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5266574-israeli-attacks-kill-least-four-palestinians-gaza
FILE PHOTO: Displaced Palestinians shelter in a tent camp on a windy day in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, April 2, 2026. REUTERS/Haseeb Alwazeer/File Photo
Israeli Attacks Kill at Least Four Palestinians in Gaza
FILE PHOTO: Displaced Palestinians shelter in a tent camp on a windy day in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, April 2, 2026. REUTERS/Haseeb Alwazeer/File Photo
Israeli military attacks killed at least four Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, health officials in the enclave said.
Medics said an airstrike carried out by Israel's forces killed one person near the central village of Al-Mughraqa, while Israeli gunfire and tank shelling killed two others near Gaza City.
In another incident, Israeli forces shot and killed a 40-year-old woman in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory, health officials said. The Israeli military said it was unaware of any attack by its troops in that area at the time of the reported incident on Sunday.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the other reported strikes.
Separately, it said it had struck and killed several Hamas militants in Gaza since Friday.
Violence in Gaza has persisted despite an October 2025 ceasefire, with Israel conducting almost daily attacks on Palestinians.
At least 800 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire deal took effect, according to local medics, while Israel says militants have killed four of its soldiers over the same period.
Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for ceasefire violations.
More than 72,500 Palestinians have been killed since the Gaza war started in October 2023, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Hamas' October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.
A 5-Step Approach to 'Dismantling Iraqi Militias'https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5266554-5-step-approach-dismantling-iraqi-militias
PM Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, head of the Popular Mobilization Forces Faleh Al-Fayyad, and PMF's chief of staff Abu Fadak (government media)
Despite continuous American demands for the Iraqi authorities to curb and dismantle factions, observers noted that the meetings of the leaders of the Coordination Framework have not been tackling this issue.
This could threaten the loss of American support for the new government, while experts propose a 5-step approach to resolve the matter.
The American insistence on dismantling armed factions has become recently highly clear through a series of punitive measures, beginning with a $10 million reward for information leading to the leader of Kataib Hezbollah, Abu Hussein Al-Hamidawi, then placing seven factions on sanctions and terrorism lists, and finally a similar reward for information about Abu Alaa Al-Wala'i, leader of Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada.
Contrary to the discourse that escalated about three months ago regarding the necessity of disarming factions and restructuring the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the Coordination Framework forces remain silent, despite the factions' actual involvement in the war with Iran and their missile attacks inside Iraqi territory and abroad on some Arab Gulf states.
War undermined efforts
A leading source from the Coordination Framework states that the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran "undermined what could be called efforts to integrate the factions."
The source confirms to Asharq Al-Awsat that "the Coordination Framework had indeed begun preliminary discussions on mechanisms for addressing the issue, but the war ... provided the appropriate pretext for the factions to refuse to disarm, considering that the war represents an existential threat to them."
The source points out that "the leaders of the Coordination Framework recognize the seriousness and magnitude of the risks posed by American demands, but they are forced to ignore them due to pressure from the factions and the Iranian actor," indicating that "some forces and figures that possess armed factions have a genuine desire to integrate their elements into the army and restructure the PMF, but they appear incapable of taking any action due to the regional developments and the stalled efforts to form a government."
Dismantling the Funding System
Writer and political researcher Dr. Basil Hussein believes that dismantling the factions is linked to what he calls the "funding system."
He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Coordination Framework forces are “a fragile coalition where disparate interests intersect.”
He points out that "armed factions are not merely an executive arm in the hands of political parties; rather, they are often the backbone upon which these parties are built economically, politically, and socially."
He further states that "any serious attempt to dismantle the factions will inevitably mean dismantling the entire funding system, which amounts to political suicide for anyone who undertakes it. Therefore, such efforts will always remain incomplete and selective, avoiding any harm to the core structure upon which the militias' influence rests."
In addition to these reasons, Hussein believes that "dismantling the factions is not a purely Iraqi decision; rather, it relates to the Iranian vision that has long viewed these factions as a cornerstone of Tehran's forward defense strategy.”
He adds that "when American pressure on the factions intensifies and their room for maneuver narrows, they will reluctantly bend rather than willingly, resorting to a superficial solution that masks their facade without touching their essence. They may change their name while retaining their structure, and formally dissolve into state institutions while maintaining their networks, weapons, and loyalties outside any actual oversight."
Mourners attend the funeral of fighters with Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces who were killed in an airstrike, in Baghdad, Iraq, April 8, 2026. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
5 Steps to a Solution
For his part, Firas Elias, Professor of Political Science at the University of Mosul and a specialist in Iranian studies, proposes an approach that includes five steps that would help dismantle the factions.
He believes that the future of armed factions in Iraq will directly depend on the future of the war between Tehran and Washington, as they "will be directly affected by the outcome of this war."
Elias tells Asharq Al-Awsat that "discussing practical ways to deal with armed factions requires developing a new approach for the post-war phase. The practical method is not (immediate dismantling), but rather a gradual re-engineering of power through the state."
Elias anticipates that if the Framework forces succeed in forming a government, and under American pressure, they may move along five paths: "First: separating the PMF as an official body from the factions as political-military arms, establishing that the PMF, which receives salaries from the state, is exclusively subject to the Commander-in-Chief, while any formation that retains independent decision-making or external affiliation is treated as an entity outside the state."
The second move involves "controlling money before weapons. The most effective approach is to audit salaries, contracts, crossings, companies, economic offices, and transfers. When informal resources are cut off, the factions become less capable of maneuvering."
In the third path, Elias expects "restructuring leadership by changing sensitive positions within the PMF Commission, transferring some brigades to distant sectors away from the borders, integrating selected units into the army or Federal Police, and retiring undisciplined leaders or assigning them to symbolic positions."
The Iraqi expert adds a fourth path related to "dismantling from within, not through confrontation. The government may differentiate between three types: factions amenable to integration, factions requiring political containment, and completely resistant factions. The approach to dealing with them would be piecemeal: incentives for the disciplined, isolation for the resistant, and legal pressure on those involved."
He concludes with the fifth path, which concerns "transforming American pressure into internal political leverage. The Framework might tell the factions: either adhere to state discipline, or face sanctions, financial isolation, and security measures that affect everyone. Here, American pressure becomes a tool in the hands of the government, not merely an external threat."
Despite these five paths, Elias believes that "the 'Framework will not dismantle the factions in one stroke, because they are part of its political structure. However, it may work to gradually strip them of their military and financial independence, while retaining the PMF designation in a disciplined, institutional manner."
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