Introduction to the evening news 17-08-2012

Everyone is wondering: how did the situation calm down with the upcoming weekend and on the eve of Eid El-Fitr? It is obvious that everyone needed to catch their breath after the peril of a bursting bomb. Or is there an “undeclared Eid truce?”       

The Mokdad Clan gave the ICRC the chance to try and collect information about Hassan Mokdad and announced the end of round 1 of their field activities.       

Meanwhile, Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah blew up a political bomb this afternoon and stated that the past two days events were out of Hezbollah and Amal’s control. “One field has started to spin out of control”, he added.  

The least we could say about such a position is that it is “self-dissociative”. It could also be seen as if Hezbollah is washing its hands clean of any further development that might occur on the “field” after the holidays.        

The first repercussions to latest disturbances appeared as the US warned its citizens in Lebanon of further dangers and asked them to be more careful. Turkey warned its citizens against travelling to Lebanon while Kuwait announced that most of its citizens were deported from Lebanon.      

On the other hand, while the military wing of the Mokdad Clan “caught its breath”, the security wing of the abductors in Aleppo added more ambiguity to the case of the Lebanese detainees in Aazaz.        

This situation obliged the Lebanese government to take action after a record delay. The ministerial committee formed by the cabinet convened today and announced that the communication channels with the Lebanese detainees’ relatives are now open in order to form a representative committee. As a first practical step, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel will be heading to Turkey tomorrow morning to follow up on the issue.       

Separately, Lakhdar Brahimi is back as he was officially appointed to replace Kofi Annan as international envoy to Syria.


For the full LBCI report, watch the video above.