May 27, 2011

Coup-Coup in Lebanon: Minister Baroud Resigns Over Telecoms-ISF Showdown

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanon, March 14 | Tags: , , , , , |
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I've been wanting to do this for a long time...

Lebanese Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud resigned yesterday following a bizarre showdown involving two different branches of the Internal Security Forces, Minister of Telecommunications Charbel Nahhas, and Baroud himself.

March 14 is calling it a Telecoms Ministry-launched coup against the executive branch of the Lebanese government; March 8th is calling it an ISF-launched coup against the state. Who’s right?

There are many conflicting accounts of what actually took place (see here for a translated round-up of the Arabic press’s lead stories) but the basic chronology seems to be as follows:

  1. Nahhas (who is a member of the Free Patriotic Movement’s cabinet bloc and a staunch ally of Michel Aoun) sent a team to dismantle some equipment housed in a building affiliated with the Telecommunications Ministry.
  2. Ashraf Rifi, general of the Internal Security Forces, sent a large group of policemen to secure the building and prevent the telecommunications team from accessing the equipment.
  3. Nahhas then sent a letter to Ziyad Baroud, asking him to order Rifi to have his men stand down. (Technically, Rifi reports to Baroud, as the ISF is under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry).
  4. Baroud did so, and Rifi ignored him, arguing that his orders came from a superior authority (more on that later).
  5. Nahhas also somehow managed to get a second branch of the ISF that is responsible for embassy protection (see here for the ISF website) to accompany him to the building where he tried to access the equipment himself.
  6. Rifi’s men prevailed, but not before the entire sad spectacle was caught on television: two branches of the same police force staring each other down, with one minister prevented from accessing a building connected with his own ministry and another minister issuing orders to his subordinates to no avail.

I’ve been in touch with government officials and other political insiders since yesterday evening, trying to piece together the factors that led to this showdown and to assess the fallout. Here are some preliminary observations:

The first questions that spring to mind, of course, are: (1) what was this mysterious equipment that Nahhas was prevented from accessing? (2) on whose authority did Rifi cordon off the building and ignore Baroud’s orders? On these issues, al-Akhbar provides some help background. It seems that the telecommunications equipment was a gift from the Chinese government in 2007. The Saniora government licensed Ogero (the state-owned company that is responsible for maintaining the telecommunications infrastructure and which has had a deeply antagonistic relationship with the current Telecoms minister) to set up a third telecommunications network in Lebanon. Why they chose to do so at that time remains unclear, but Rifi claimed to have been operating under the executive order of Saniora’s government when he disregarded the orders of Baroud to allow Nahhas access to the equipment.

It is highly ironic (as Mustapha at Beirut Spring astutely pointed out yesterday) that the ordered dismantling of a telecommunications network should again provide the spark for a tense confrontation between Lebanon’s two political blocs. When the Saniora government attempted to pull the same trick on Hizbullah in 2008, we all recall what happened.

As far as the political fallout is concerned, Nahhas and Michel Aoun look like the clear winners here. Ashraf Rifi has long been accused by March 8 politicians of running the ISF like a March 14th militia accountable only to Saad al-Hariri. Baroud’s resignation makes that reading very attractive to many Lebanese who are uncomfortable with the idea of a military officer ignoring the directives of perhaps the most popular civilian leader in the country (i.e. Baroud).

It should also be pointed out that Baroud (a friend of this blog whom I admire a great deal) has long been unhappy in his position at the Interior Ministry. His freedom of movement has been severely curtailed and he has had virtually no authority over many of the security-related fiefdoms that he is supposed to oversee. He has supposedly come very close to resigning on multiple occasions, but was likely prevented from doing so by President Suleiman, who needed a trustworthy ally in this all-important ministry. Yesterday’s events, however, were too egregious for Baroud to ignore. My personal feeling is that he made the right move.

More info will be posted as it becomes available…
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July 30, 2009

Lebanon’s ISF Dubbed ‘Beirut Yard’ By Interpol

Posted by Qifa Nabki under The Qnion | Tags: , |
[19] Comments 

ISF-troopers

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Following a string of breakthroughs in high-profile cases, including busted Israeli spy rings, multi-million dollar drug heists, and uncovered terrorist networks, the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) have attracted the attention of several Western intelligence agencies and police networks, including Interpol, the FBI, and MI5.

“The cracked-case rate for the ISF this year is very impressive,” said Paulo Cinzetti, director of Interpol’s Eastern Europe division. “What they’ve been able to accomplish in twelve months is just remarkable.”

After years of doing little else besides directing traffic and breaking up late-night bar melees, the ISF is beginning to make its name as a highly effective investigative unit.

Using both sophisticated hi-tech surveillance technology and plain old common sense, the security service captured international attention recently after a major drug bust that brought the ISF into close coordination with some of the world’s most famous investigative agencies.

“They’re street-smart and creative,” said Bill Schlitz, of the FBI’s overseas narcotics intelligence task force. “Some of the techniques that they’re using are so simple that you want to smack your forehead and say, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’”

The ISF is highly protective of its secrets, but outside observers were given a glimpse of its inner workings a few months ago when the organization admitted to using linked-laptop computing to track calls made on encypted cell phones. At the same time, however, detectives relied on the time-worn tools of the trade, such as magnifying glasses, fingerprint dusters, and fake moustaches.

The successes have prompted Geert van der Veer, head of Interpol for the Middle East and North Africa, to dub the ISF “Beirut Yard,” a reference to the famed investigative division of Britain’s metropolitan police, Scotland Yard.

In response to requests for assistance from security agencies around the world, sources say that the ISF also recently assembled a top-secret task force of traveling investigators that worked behind the scenes to help uncover some of the year’s biggest crimes.

“The Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme would never have been discovered if it weren’t for Lebanese detectives,” says Sally Hanson, a spokeswoman for the FBI. “We were totally in the dark until they came along.”

Building on its successes, the ISF has also evidently put together a division dedicated to “historical cases” that went cold years ago.

Mazen Siblini, a senior detective with the agency, mused that historical crimes present the most challenges. “Actually, this is why we are attracted to them. Other crimes, your murders, your drug rings, your spy networks, these are, how do you say… elementary?” Siblini chuckled, smoking a pipe behind his desk at ISF HQ.

When pressed for details on the kinds of cases that the historical crimes division was looking into, Siblini’s eyes twinkled.

“Well, obviously, our work is confidential. But  I can tell you that some very interesting information in connection with the assassination of a certain Catholic American president will soon be coming to light,” he said, giggling happily. “Also, we may have discovered the body of a certain Detroit trade unionist, so keep an eye out for that.”

When asked if any case was too cold to be cracked by the ISF, Siblibi was circumspect. “Well, I’d say that it becomes more difficult the further back you go. For example, we currently have some very good leads on the curious incident of the disappearance of the dinosaurs, but it has been a tricky case indeed.”

As for the most difficult case on the ISF’s unsolved list, Siblini left no room for doubt: “The toughest case is unquestionably the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg.” Staring out the window with a far off look in his eyes, Siblini confessed to a very personal attachment to the case.

“I’m determined to crack it before I retire from the service, or else I fear that I will never be able to get a full night’s sleep for the rest of my life.”

By Qifa Nabki
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