DAILY SCOPE: Fun Time Over For Saudi Arabia, Future Party Official Supported Extremists

Local Editor

NEWS HEADLINES:

AL-AKHBAR:

Idlib: Army Starts Operations, Controls 3 Villages
Hizbullah: Fun Time Is Over

AS-SAFIR:

Turkey Supports Yemeni Settlement: International Conference Including All
Tehran: No Nuclear Deal without Lifting Sanctions

AL-BINAA:

KSA Ongoing with Haphazard War after International Decision, No Strategy To Exit War

THE DAILY STAR:

Four linked to radical sheikh surrender in north Lebanon

THE GUARDIAN

Amnesty warns human rights abuses ‘unabated' before Bahrain Grand Prix

The US-Saudi led aggression on Yemen was not absent from newspapers headlines on Thursday, in addition to focus on Iran's assurance to the full lifting of sanctions if a deal were to happen. Also to make the headlines of Lebanese newspapers was the security file, with the confessions of a major terrorist on receiving arms from the March-14 Future Party official Amid Hammoud.

Future Party Official Sold Arms to Extremists --- As-Safir

Arrested extremist Ziyad Saleh, aka ‘Ziyad Alouki' revealed some security ‘secrets' according to As-Safir newspaper on Thursday. The detainee uncovered that the Future party official Amid Hammoud had provided him with arms and ammunition every once in a while, including Klashinkovs and Grenov machne guns.
Saleh, according to the paper, revealed that the Future party official also provide other young men with arms, including a group inside the Tabanneh area in Tripoli. He said Hamoud stood behind the armed groups that went to fight from Tabbeneh with heavy arms, including canons.
Another arrested known as Saad Masri also revealed that Hammoud was actually was behind ‘creating and financing' the battles in Tripoli's area.

Fun Time for Saudi Arabia is Over --- Al-Akhbar 

In an analysis, Wafiq Safa of al-Akhbar newspaper writes that the ‘fun time' is over now when it comes to Hizbullah's stance on the Saudi aggression launched against Yemen.

"Following the Saudi attack on Yemen, the taboos that were once respected no longer exist."

He noted that for the first time, Hizbullah escalates its political rhetoric in such a manner, describing the Saudi regime as ‘ignorant, retarded, murderer, extremism exporter, and unorthodox ideologue." And with Hizbullah secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah expected to deliver a speech on Friday in a solidarity ceremony with the Yemeni people, his speech is not expected to be less escalatory than the current rhetoric.

The analyst also noted that ‘it is clear that Hizbullah has the ability to confront the huge media propaganda Saudi Arabia has been carrying out in the Arab world during the past few years in an attempt to ‘satanize' Hizbullah and spread sectarian strife in the region. And this time, there was serious need to break the taboo that protected the al-Saud family, which shocked the Lebanese and Arab public opinion and brought their attention to how serious the situation in Yemen is.

Extremist Suspects Linked to ISIL Arrested --- The Daily Star

Four suspects linked to extremist Sheikh Khaled Hoblos turned themselves into police Wednesday in northern Lebanon, while a ninth suspect was arrested separately in Tripoli, the Daily Star quoted sources.

The source said that four men from the Akkoush family handed themselves over to authorities at the Internal Security Forces' Information Branch in Minyeh.
The four had been charged with involvement in the four-day gunbattle with the Lebanese Army in Tripoli and other parts of northern Lebanon last October. They allegedly admitted to cooperating with Hoblos, who was arrested in Tripoli last week, according to the source.

The move came hours after a policeman at the Tripoli Municipality was arrested for allegedly having facilitated Hoblos' movements.

The source told The Daily Star that around midnight Tuesday a Lebanese Army Intelligence unit apprehended Mohammad Saifeddine Qader for allegedly renting an apartment for Hoblos and helping him get around. Hoblos was arrested last week during a police operation in the northern city of Tripoli..

Bahrain Continues Abuse of Peaceful Protesters --- THE GUARDIAN 

A major report from Amnesty International released to coincide with this weekend's Formula One grand prix has warned that human rights abuses in Bahrain continue "unabated" despite repeated assurances from the authorities that the situation is improving.

The Bahrain Grand Prix has become a prism through which human rights groups have sought to focus attention on the situation in the country after protests in the capital by pro-democracy campaigners in 2011 caused the race to be cancelled.
The Amnesty report details dozens of cases of detainees being beaten, deprived of sleep and adequate food, burned with cigarettes, sexually assaulted, subjected to electric shocks and burned with an iron. It said the report showed torture, arbitrary detentions and excessive use of force against peaceful activists and government critics remained widespread in Bahrain.

Said Boumedouha, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa deputy director, said: "As the world's eyes fall on Bahrain during the grand prix this weekend, few will realise the international image the authorities have attempted to project of the country as a progressive reformist state committed to human rights masks a far more sinister truth.

"Four years on from the uprising, repression is widespread and rampant abuses by the security forces continue. The notion that Bahrain respects freedom of expression is pure fiction. Where is the freedom in a country where peaceful activists, dissidents and opposition leaders are repeatedly rounded up and arbitrarily arrested simply for tweeting their opinions, and reading a poem can get you thrown in jail?"

Stances & Positions

Hizbullah Official Sheikh Nabil Qaouk said that the "Saudi-US aggression targeting the will, values and the sovereignty of Yemen is not an Arab-Persian war, because the people of Yemen are no less Arabs than the Saudis."

He stressed "It is also not a Sunni-Shia war, because the Saudi war jets do not differentiate between Sunnis and Shia and has been massacring Yemeni people from all sects and ethnic groups. Hence, the aggression is a Saudi-US aggression on an Arab and Muslim peoples."

Source: al-Ahed news