IRAQ: Big changes in the Mahdi Army?

Sayid Fareed al-Fadhili, a bearded cleric in his 30s, heads the Shiite Mahdi Army militia’s new non-armed branch, Mumahidoon, an Arabic word "meaning those who pave the way." Sitting in Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr’s office in Sadr City, Fadhili described his men as the militia's educational wing.

In June, Sadr first announced plans to transform most of the Mahdi Army militia into a social organization, while preserving an elite group to fight the U.S. military, without harming Iraq’s civilians.

The overhaul was prompted after the spring offensive by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki in the southern city of Basra. The fighting, which then spread to Sadr City in Baghdad, concluded with the Mahdi Army laying down its weapons.

Fadhili elaborated on the Mahdi Army’s new structure. “The first section is the armed one for resisting only the occupiers and to not carry weapons against any other side. This section is a clandestine one. Nobody knows who their members are,” Fadhili explained. “The second part is ours, which will undertake ethical and cultural issues to change the society from its tendencies toward a secular and Western orientation to a society based on Islamic and religious culture.”

Fadhili said that Mumahidoon members did not carry weapons.

“They never carry weapons and they do not care for the military side at all. Their main work is absolutely cultural and intellectual,” he said.

ISRAEL: The L.A. mafia connection

A story in Tuesday's paper detailed the federal racketeering charges levied against Israeli crime bosses Meir and Itzhak Abergil. The pending U.S. extradition request is just the latest twist for the duo believed to head one of Israel’s top five crime families.

The pair has been under investigation by Israeli and American authorities for years, and Itzhak Abergil dodged a drug trafficking charge in the Netherlands in 2004.

They and other prominent Israeli crime families have evaded local prosecution for years, partially because the vast majority of their criminal activities, such as ecstasy trafficking, took place outside Israel. Among those activities, according to the 77-page indictment, was an alliance with the Vineland Boys, a San Fernando Valley gang, to distribute ecstasy.

But on July 28, 31-year old Marguerita Lautinare was killed in front of her husband and two children in an Israeli beachside restaurant — a bystander to a failed hit allegedly ordered by Abergil. The incident horrified and mobilized Israeli public sentiment, and may also have provided authorities with crucial evidence against the Abergils.

Both of the hit men were apprehended and the brothers were arrested just over a week later and charged with ordering the hit as part of an internal family dispute.

"Someone apparently talked," said one criminologist. "This is what allowed Abergil to be arrested."

LEBANON: Domestic workers driven to suicide

The facts are nothing short of tragic. More and more immigrant housemaids are dying every week in Lebanon. Some commit suicide or die trying to run away from their employers, an international human rights organization reported Tuesday.   

The findings of the New-York-based Human Rights Watch are appalling:

Since January 2007, at least 95 migrant domestic workers have died in Lebanon. Of these 95 deaths, 40 are classified by the embassies of the migrants as suicide, while 24 others were caused by workers falling from high buildings, often while trying to escape their employers. By contrast, only 14 domestic workers died because of diseases or health issues.

Apparently, strenuous work conditions are behind the high death toll of domestic employees, mainly women coming from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia, according to the HRW report:

Interviews with embassy officials and friends of domestic workers who committed suicide suggest that forced confinement, excessive work demands, employer abuse, and financial pressures are key factors pushing these women to kill themselves or risk their lives.

EGYPT: Liquor is back at the Hyatt, but not everywhere

Liquor is flowing -- well, let's say trickling -- again at the Grand Hyatt on the Nile. After a dry summer, the Saudi owner of the hotel made concessions this week to the Hyatt international chain by partially lifting a ban he had imposed on alcohol.

A few months ago, Sheikh Abdel Aziz Ibrahim, a relative of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, stunned the tourism business when he gave orders to dump more than $1 million worth of alcoholic beverages into the Nile River. The decision, driven by Islamic religiosity, stirred anger in the circles of the country’s tourism leaders, who threatened to demote the five-star hotel to two stars. 

Yet, this is not to assume that the Saudi sheikh made major concessions. Liquor is back, but will not be served everywhere in the luxurious resort. Visitors can sip their beer and martinis only in a secluded 40th floor restaurant. The owner’s spokeswoman, Sally Khattab, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that her boss' decision allowed him "keep his hotel with the family atmosphere he would like to present to his guests.”

Khattab added that this isolated restaurant will be managed by a different company so to keep the sheikh aloof from any alcohol business.

Guests are left with another option; They can order alcohol through room service.

—Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo

Photo: Grand Hyatt Cairo. Credit: Cris Bouroncle  AFP/Getty Images

IRAN: Does Ahmadinejad have Khamenei's OK, or not?

Western observers, including the the Los Angeles Times, jumped on recent comments by Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that appeared to be a ringing endorsement for firebrand president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he prepares to compete for a second term next year.

Under the headline "Supreme Leader sees Ahmadinejad for second term in office," the official Islamic Republic News Agency on Monday reported Khamenei's weekend remarks urging the current government to begin acting as if it were going to have another four years in office.

Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, a rival of Ahmadinejad, suggested he would abide by Khamenei's remarks. But he spoke in a manner that could have been laced with a hint of the sarcastic dissimulation for which Iranians are famous.

"We thank our wise leader who has indicated the boundary for criticism and stressed legal monitoring and emphasized cooperation and understanding among officials to prevent turmoil," Rafsanjani told reporters Tuesday morning on the sidelines of a meeting.

IRAQ: In Basra, fears for the future

The attempted assassination of a Shiite cleric in Basra recently has added to locals' fears that five months after a military crackdown on militias, the gangland-style violence that once plagued the southern oil city is returning. The clergyman, Haidar Ismael, was shot in central Basra on Saturday night and seriously wounded.

According to the Associated Press, Ismael is known as a critic of Shiite militias blamed for much of the past violence in Basra. They include the Mahdi Army of Muqtada Sadr and the Badr Organization, the militia tied to the country's biggest Shiite political group. Basra has long been a center of the Badr-versus-Sadr rivalry, which was blamed for turning the city into a lawless den of abductions, murder and corruption.

A major military offensive launched in March drove militias off the streets, and Iraqi security forces replaced them, but lately, locals say there are signs the army is losing its grip. "We fear the city could fall again into the hands of political violence," a senior Iraqi army officer told the Los Angeles Times' reporter in Basra recently.

Like many others in Basra, he cited upcoming provincial elections expected this year as a reason for growing unrest. Some groups might oppose the vote, fearing a loss at the polls. Others want to put themselves in a position of increased power before any balloting takes place, to bolster their chances at the polls. The end result is bloodshed as gunmen loyal to various groups return to action.

In one of the worst attacks recently, gunmen ambushed a minivan carrying election workers, killing two of them.

BAHRAIN: Where bloggers are potent troublemakers

When a secret report incriminating the Bahraini government leaked out to the media, newspapers were too worried to publish it. They turned, instead, to a young blogger to make the information public. 

At 30, Ali Abdulemam, a computer engineer, runs Bahrainonline.org, which is considered the largest online town hall for Bahraini activists and bloggers.

“Blogging has allowed us as Bahrainis to breathe some fresh air. As a blogger, you feel that you are helping your country,” he said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times during a gathering for Arab bloggers organized in Beirut last weekend by a German organization, the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Abdulemam comes from a Shiite Muslim family that opposes the Sunni-dominated monarchy in Bahrain. Some of his relatives have been jailed for political activism. He was also arrested in 2005 and held for 17 days on charges of insulting the king because of a posting criticizing the royal family that appeared on his website. 

The idea of creating a blog came to him when he was 20, at a time when Bahrain was, what he called, an “oppressive” state run by the security services.

“I wanted to create a website where people inside and outside Bahrain could communicate and exchange information,” he said. “There was too little information in the media.”

IRAQ: Deal or no deal?

The ongoing saga of U.S. and Iraqi attempts to hammer out a deal on the future of American forces in Iraq has taken a new twist with Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's declaration Monday that he won't accept any plan that does not include a withdrawal date for U.S. soldiers.

Maliki made his comments to a gathering of tribal leaders, and while some of it may have been grandstanding aimed at bolstering support, it was the first time the prime minister had publicly demanded a withdrawal deadline. As for the deadline, Maliki said U.S. and Iraqi negotiators had agreed on the end of 2011.

His comments make clear that Maliki is throwing down the gauntlet as time runs out for some sort of deal to be struck. The United States has insisted it does not want a withdrawal deadline. Any dates for troop departures must be contingent upon security conditions in Iraq being suitable for a handover to Iraqi control, according to the United States.

EGYPT: Death in the desert

They sneak away from war and famine and head across the southern desert toward Cairo.

Smugglers hustle them north to the Sinai, where they crawl through tunnels and along barbed wire in attempts to reach Israel.

It is a well-trod journey thousands of Sudanese refugees and African migrants endure for a better life. But they are often arrested and shot at and sometimes killed by Egyptian border guards.

Amnesty International has asked Cairo to investigate the deaths of 25 refugees and asylum seekers killed by security forces since mid-2007. The human rights agency said Egypt had a right to protect its borders but that the country's "shameful treatment of sub-Saharan African migrants and vulnerable asylum seekers blatantly disregards international law."

IRAQ: My meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, spiritual guide to millions of Iraq’s Shiite majority, called eight local journalists to visit him Sunday as he sought to dispel rumors published in a Jordanian newspaper that he was seriously ill. Sistani, a reclusive cleric, has been one of the most influential voices in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. He used his moral authority to push the United States to allow elections in Iraq in January 2005 when U.S. officials had originally envisioned a longer timeframe. Sistani helped bring an end to the uprising waged by young radical cleric Muqtada Sadr in Najaf in August 2004. The frail cleric, who seldom leaves his house in Najaf, is a force to be reckoned with, whether by Americans or by politicians in Baghdad, who curry his favor.

Saad Fakhrildeen, The Times' special correspondent in Najaf, writes below about meeting the cleric in Sistani's office, located in an anonymous alleyway in the pilgrimage city.

By Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf

All eight of us were called in the morning to visit the grand ayatollah’s bureau. We were met by his son, Mohammed Ridha, who serves as his father’s top advisor. He welcomed us and said the media needed to dispel the rumors that crop up from time to time about the grand ayatollah, in particular the latest one that he was ill. Mohammed Ridha entered his father’s office first while we waited in a guest area drinking tea. He then left and beckoned for us to go inside. We thought it would be the same as in the past, where we would grip his hand and kiss it and then leave.

Sistani sat on a mattress, dressed in his black robes and matching turban. He shook our hands and we wished him success. He beckoned us to sit with him. We sat on both his left and right. The room had about seven thin mattresses and one large rug. A small plastic bag held coins. The lights went out briefly and then a generator started up and emitted a steady roar. Sitting with him, I was so happy, I wanted to cry.