Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

*** Hezbollah threatens to destroy Tel Aviv.  The leader of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, has said that Hezbollah “will destroy Tel Aviv” if Israel attacks Iran.  According to Ayatollah Jafar Shojouni, a member of Iran’s Combatant Clergy Association, Nasrallah made this pledge in a meeting with Shojouni in Lebanon about three months ago.  According to Shojouni, Nasrallah said: “If Israelis come near Tehran, we will destroy Tel Aviv.”

Interestingly, in an interview with Lebanon’s Daily Star published on 27 September, Shojouni admitted that support for Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was waning, but he also said that he would serve out his term.  He blamed Ahmadinejad’s problems on his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, who “only seeks controversy and tensions”.

*** Islamists step up struggle for fruits of revolution.  The Islamists are stepping up their efforts to inherit the fruits of the Arab Spring, and, increasingly, pro-Islamist commentators and media outlets are talking about a conspiracy to steal the Arab revolutions from the Islamists, whom they claim were the main instruments in the successful revolutions.

The Islamists admit that the Islamist element was modest in the Tunisian revolution, but they claim a decisive influence in Egypt and Libya and in the uncompleted revolutions in Syria and Yemen.  In Libya, in particular, it is pointed out that the Islamists “paid in a torrent of blood” (to quote a recent commentary in Jordan’s ad-Dustour).  Indeed, there are also rumours doing the rounds that Nato jets intentionally targeted Islamist fighters in Libya only later to claim this ‘friendly fire’ was a mistake.  The myth-making is in full swing.

In the meantime, the differences between the Islamist and liberal wings of the Libyan revolution are continuing to prevent the formation of a government, which was originally due to have been concluded by 18 September.  The problem in Libya is that the Islamists did undoubtedly bear the brunt of the fighting, and now they want to have the premiership and a majority of cabinet ministers.  The liberals, on the other hand, say that their role in gaining the diplomatic and military support of the West was fundamental to the success of the revolution and should be awarded accordingly.  The position is further complicated by the claims of the various Libyan regions and tribes.

A key figure is Ali al-Salabi, the spiritual leader of Libya’s Islamists.  He has told France that it must respect the desires of the Libyan people, by which he meant that France should refrain from pushing the claims of Mahmud Jibril, the former chairman of the executive board of the Transitional National Council (TNC).  Al-Salabi wants Dr Abd-al-Rahman al-Suwayhili as prime minister.