Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Byblous Bank Is First Lebanese Bank In Irbil
Trade
(Asharq Al Awsat Newspaper) - 25 JUL - The Lebanese Byblous Bank has opened in the Kurdish capital, Irbil. It is the first Lebanese bank to invest in the Iraqi market. Previously, the Commercial Lebanese Bank announced that it would enter the Iraqi market, but the Qatar government which owns 97% of this bank decided to postpone this investment.
Now Byblous Bank is the only foreign bank working in Irbil. The bank will provide customers with commercial banking services, opening accounts, guaranteeing loans and document storage. The bank has a new strategy which is to expand into the growing markets. Since 2003, Arab and international banks such as “HSBCA,” National Kuwait Bank, Jordanian Capitol Bank and the Qatar National Bank have succeeded in buying part of Iraqi banks.
Labels: Byblous Bank, Irbil, Lebanon, Qatar government
Monday, July 16, 2007
Report - Saudis make up largest number of foreign fighters in Iraq
Insurgency
(Gulf News) - Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran for helping the insurgents and militias who attack US troops and civilians here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third next-door neighbour, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior US military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.
The US military believes 45 per cent of all foreign militants are Saudi, another 15 per cent are from Syria and Lebanon and 10 per cent from North Africa, according to official US military figures released to the Los Angeles Times by the officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners currently held in US detention facilities in Iraq are Saudi.
Saudi fighters are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than any other nationality, said the senior American military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity for the US government. It is apparently the first time a US official has given such a breakdown on the pivotal role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.
He added that 50 per cent of all Saudi fighters here are suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis. The situation has left the American military in the awkward position of facing an enemy whose top source of fighters is a key regional ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking bloody attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending jihadists to commit attacks against US forces, civilians and Iraq's Shiite-led government.
The situation also casts a spotlight on the tangled web of alliances and enemies that often swirl just below the surface in the political relationships between Muslim nations and with the US government. The threat of suicide attacks by a Sunni insurgent group that calls itself Al Qaida in Iraq is the greatest short-term threat to Iraq's security, US military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner warned last Wednesday. The Saudi government does not dispute that some of its youth are ending up as suicide bombers in Iraq, but says it has done everything it currently can to stop the bloodshed.
The bombings in Iraq mainly target Iraq's Shiite majority whom Sunni Arab extremists consider unbelievers.
"Saudis are actually being misused. Someone is helping them come to Iraq, someone is helping them inside Iraq, someone is recruiting them to be suicide bombers. We have no idea who these people are. We aren't getting any formal information from the Iraqi government,'' said Gen. Mansour Al Turki, spokesman for the Saudi interior ministry. "If we get good feedback from the Iraqi government about Saudis being arrested in Iraq, probably we can help."
The US military believes 45 per cent of all foreign militants are Saudi, another 15 per cent are from Syria and Lebanon and 10 per cent from North Africa, according to official US military figures released to the Los Angeles Times by the officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners currently held in US detention facilities in Iraq are Saudi.
Saudi fighters are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than any other nationality, said the senior American military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity for the US government. It is apparently the first time a US official has given such a breakdown on the pivotal role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.
He added that 50 per cent of all Saudi fighters here are suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis. The situation has left the American military in the awkward position of facing an enemy whose top source of fighters is a key regional ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking bloody attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending jihadists to commit attacks against US forces, civilians and Iraq's Shiite-led government.
The situation also casts a spotlight on the tangled web of alliances and enemies that often swirl just below the surface in the political relationships between Muslim nations and with the US government. The threat of suicide attacks by a Sunni insurgent group that calls itself Al Qaida in Iraq is the greatest short-term threat to Iraq's security, US military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner warned last Wednesday. The Saudi government does not dispute that some of its youth are ending up as suicide bombers in Iraq, but says it has done everything it currently can to stop the bloodshed.
The bombings in Iraq mainly target Iraq's Shiite majority whom Sunni Arab extremists consider unbelievers.
"Saudis are actually being misused. Someone is helping them come to Iraq, someone is helping them inside Iraq, someone is recruiting them to be suicide bombers. We have no idea who these people are. We aren't getting any formal information from the Iraqi government,'' said Gen. Mansour Al Turki, spokesman for the Saudi interior ministry. "If we get good feedback from the Iraqi government about Saudis being arrested in Iraq, probably we can help."
Labels: Al Qaeda in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, foreign fighters, Gen. Mansour Al Turki, Lebanon, North Africa, Saudi Arabia, Syria
Sunday, March 11, 2007
U.N. - 727,000 Iraqis have fled homes in last month
Humanitarian
(Al Jazeera)
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has begun a one-week mission to Syria, Lebanon and Jordan to strengthen support for displaced Iraqis in the region and the countries hosting them. George Okoth-Obbo, director of international protection, travelled to Syria on Saturday ahead of an April conference in Geneva on displacement in Iraq. The United Nations estimates 2 million Iraqis now live in nearby countries and about 1.9 million have been displaced within Iraq itself. It estimates more than 727,000 Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes since last month.
A statement issued by the agency said the one-week mission is "part of UNHCR's overall efforts to strengthen its protection and assistance programmes for hundreds of thousands of uprooted Iraqis in the region". Okoth-Obbo will be in Syria until Tuesday, then travels to Lebanon through Wednesday, and then Jordan on Thursday and Friday. He will meet government officials and aid workers in each country. UNHCR estimates Syria hosts about 1 million Iraqis and Jordan hosts about 750,000. Lebanon has an estimated 40,000 Iraqis.
The statement said: "Missions will be focussed on the ongoing effort to ensure that Iraqis fleeing their homeland receive international protection, that the required systems are in place ... and that there are programmes for the provision of assistance and solutions, including resettlement of the most vulnerable."Radhouane Nouicer, UNHCR's director for the Middle East and North Africa will also be reviewing operations in the region.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has begun a one-week mission to Syria, Lebanon and Jordan to strengthen support for displaced Iraqis in the region and the countries hosting them. George Okoth-Obbo, director of international protection, travelled to Syria on Saturday ahead of an April conference in Geneva on displacement in Iraq. The United Nations estimates 2 million Iraqis now live in nearby countries and about 1.9 million have been displaced within Iraq itself. It estimates more than 727,000 Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes since last month.
A statement issued by the agency said the one-week mission is "part of UNHCR's overall efforts to strengthen its protection and assistance programmes for hundreds of thousands of uprooted Iraqis in the region". Okoth-Obbo will be in Syria until Tuesday, then travels to Lebanon through Wednesday, and then Jordan on Thursday and Friday. He will meet government officials and aid workers in each country. UNHCR estimates Syria hosts about 1 million Iraqis and Jordan hosts about 750,000. Lebanon has an estimated 40,000 Iraqis.
The statement said: "Missions will be focussed on the ongoing effort to ensure that Iraqis fleeing their homeland receive international protection, that the required systems are in place ... and that there are programmes for the provision of assistance and solutions, including resettlement of the most vulnerable."Radhouane Nouicer, UNHCR's director for the Middle East and North Africa will also be reviewing operations in the region.
Labels: displaced people, George Okoth-Obbo, Jordan, Lebanon, refugees, Syria, UNHCR
Friday, March 09, 2007
Lebanese bank to open in Arbil
Business
(Financial Express) Byblos Bank, Lebanon’s third-largest lender, will open a branch in Iraq next month using the safety of the Kurdish north as a platform for expansion into a country that holds 10% of the world’s oil reserves. “Iraq is very important, there is huge potential there,’’ chairman Francois Bassil, 72, said in an interview in his office in Beirut March 6. Byblos will open its branch in Arbil, capital of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, because it’s more secure than other parts of the country, he said.
Byblos Bank, which has about $6.2 billion of deposits, plans to start in Iraq by financing trade and infrastructure projects. It also aims to become an intermediary for Iraqi banks trying to do business overseas, Bassil said. A total 27 domestic banks operate in Iraq, seven of them state-owned, the Central Bank of Iraq says on its web site. HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest bank by market value, in 2005 said it won regulatory approval to buy 75% o Baghdad-based Dar el-Salaam Investment Bank as a means to return to Iraq for the first time since Iraq’s banks were nationalized in 1964.
Labels: Arbil, Byblos Bank, Lebanon
Friday, March 02, 2007
Hizbullah denies training Iraqi fighters
Security
(The Daily Star) Hizbullah denied Thursday accusations made by US National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, who said that the resistance group was training Iraqi fighters in Lebanon and sending them back to Iraq to commit attacks against American troops. In a statement issued by its press office, Hizbullah described McConnell's allegations as "yet another American fabrication." The statement added that such accusations "only highlight the United States' abhorrence of any resistance movement fighting against its hegemony in the region."
Labels: Hizbullah, Lebanon, Michael McConnell, U.S.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Iran training Iraqis in Lebanon - U.S. intelligence
Security
(Reuters) Iran is training Iraqi Shi'ites to use armor-piercing munitions inside Iran and at camps in Lebanon run by the Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah, the top U.S. intelligence official said on Tuesday. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, newly installed U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell said it was "probable" that Iranian leaders including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were aware that weapons known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, had been supplied to Iraqi Shi'ites.
The Pentagon blames EFPs for the deaths of 170 U.S. troops since 2004. But McConnell, in his first congressional testimony as the U.S. director of national intelligence, stopped short of saying Iran was directing the EFP attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq. "We know there are Iranian weapons manufactured in Iran. We know that Quds Forces (of Iran's Revolutionary Guards) are bringing them (into Iraq)," McConnell said at a panel hearing on world threats facing the United States.
"Is there a direct link from Quds Forces delivering weapons, to the most senior leadership in Iran?" he said. "I would phrase it as 'probable' but, again, no direct link ... I am comfortable saying it's probable." McConnell took over the intelligence chief's job a week ago to replace John Negroponte, who is now deputy secretary of state.
"Is there a direct link from Quds Forces delivering weapons, to the most senior leadership in Iran?" he said. "I would phrase it as 'probable' but, again, no direct link ... I am comfortable saying it's probable." McConnell took over the intelligence chief's job a week ago to replace John Negroponte, who is now deputy secretary of state.
Labels: Hezbollah, Iran, Lebanon, Michael McConnell, training
