Sunday, April 26, 2009

[chottala.com] Iraq: US raid 'crime' that breaks security pact

Iraq: US raid 'crime' that breaks security pact

AP – In this photo taken Sunday, April 19, 2009, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki gestures as he speaks …

By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer Brian Murphy, Associated Press Writer – Sun Apr 26, 5:26 pm ET

BAGHDAD – Iraq's prime minister denounced a deadly U.S. raid on Sunday as a "crime" that violated the security pact with Washington and demanded American commanders hand over those responsible to face possible trial in Iraqi courts.

The U.S. military, however, strongly denied that it overstepped its bounds and said it notified Iraqi authorities in advance — in accordance with the rules that took effect this year governing U.S. battlefield conduct.

The pre-dawn raid in the southern Shiite city of Kut ended with at least one woman dead after being caught in gunfire and six suspects arrested for alleged links to Shiite militia factions.

But efforts were quickly launched in an attempt to tone down the dispute.

The six detainees were released, said Major Gen. Read Shakir Jawdat, head of the provincial police that includes Kut. At the same news conference, U.S. Col. Richard Francey offered condolences to the family of the woman killed.

The fallout marks the most serious test of the security pact so far and could bring new strains during a critical transition period.

U.S. forces plan to move out of most major Iraqi cities by the end of June in the first phase of a promised withdrawal from the country by the end of 2011.

A statement from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — in his role as commander general of Iraqi forces — called the raid a "violation of the security pact."

He asked the U.S. military "to release the detainees and hand over those responsible for this crime to the courts," according to an Iraqi security official who read the statement to The Associated Press.

Elsewhere in Iraq, gunmen stormed two Christian homes in separate attacks in the ethnically diverse city of Kirkuk, killing at least two Chaldean Christians and one Assyrian, said police Brig. Burham Taib.

The northern city is a fault line between the majority Kurds and Arabs, but also includes ethnic Turks and various Christian groups. A U.N. report given to Iraqi leaders last week recommends giving Kirkuk a "special status" with oversight by both the Kurd region and the central government in Baghdad.

In Kut, the cascade of protests and questions began just hours after the sweep into Kut, which the U.S. military said targeted suspected backers of Shiite militias believed to have links to Iran.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the mosque in Kut, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, to decry the American action and demand an investigation.

The provincial council then called an emergency meeting and a three-day mourning period. The Iraqi Defense Ministry also ordered the arrest of two high-ranking Iraqi officers for their alleged roles in allowing U.S. forces to operate in Kut.

"We condemn this crime," said Mahmoud al-Etaibi, head of the council.

Iraq's military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, described it as the "first violation after signing the security pact."

The U.S. military said its troops acted within the framework of the security pact, saying "the operation was fully coordinated and approved by the Iraqi government."

The accord, which took effect Jan. 1, requires American commanders to coordinate raids and other pre-planned strikes with the Iraqi government and military, or work in joint U.S.-Iraq units.

At least one person died in the raid, which the U.S. military said targeted the financier of Shiite militia factions believed to be backed by the Iranians. Iraqi officials placed the death toll at two.

The Defense Ministry spokesman, Mohammed al-Askari, said an Iraqi brigade commander and a battalion commander were arrested for "allowing American troops to conduct a military operation in Kut province without informing the Iraqi government or coordinating with it."

Kut provincial police chief, Brig. Gen. Raed Shakir Jawdat, said he was unaware a raid was conducted. The U.S. military did not provide information on whether Iraqi security forces took part.

The military said a woman was in the area during an exchange of gunfire with one of the suspects and "stepped into the line of fire."

It said those detained were suspected of aiding so-called "special groups" — Shiite militia factions that were once part of the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr — and another faction known as the Promise Day Brigades created by al-Sadr.

Washington says the special groups are backed by Iran. Tehran denies the charges.

Iraqi police officials say the wife and brother of a local clan leader were killed. They also say the soldiers arrested the clan leader, Ahmed Abdul Muneim al-Bdeir, his brother — an Iraqi police captain — and five others related to the al-Bdeir.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to release the information.

___

Associated Press Writer Chelsea J. Carter and Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.

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[chottala.com] Solving the Energy Crisis

Some Questions !!!

(1) Can the agricultural sector make up the deficiency in supply of urea if all urea factories are shut down?

(Since Bangladesh has improved the agricultural productions drastically in the last few years and is producing food for almost the entire people of the country, not counting the natural disasters, the closure of the urea factories can result in the reduction of food production, and thereby increase hunger and food prices, damaging the country a lot.)

(2) Does the gas supply organizations such as Titas Gas, have enough resources to make significant improvements in the installations of extensive quantity of gas pipelines and increasing the pipeline pressure?

(3) What are the advantages of barge mounted power plants as opposed to traditional shore-mounted or river-bank mounted power plants?

(As the industry practice, a power plant generally refers to a large power producing facility, not a standby diesel generator for peak shaving of a utility supply at the times of maximum demands, or to offset the crises of utility power to a big building, an institutional campus, an industrial plant, or even a housing complex. These standby plants can be diesel or natural gas fired, and can be stationary or mobile. The mobile ones can be barge mounted, trailer mounted, truck mounted, or wheeled container mounted. The stationary units can be pad mounted. All large power plants shall be stationary and needed to be installed near a natural water source (River, lake, bay, sea, falls, bills, etc. to be able to get cooling water intake and discharge easily and continuosly during the unit operations. The discharge must be processed before letting it to go to the nature again. often times it needs discharge retaining ponds, open air and sunlight, bacteria culture, sedimentation & filtering plants, osmosis, and various other arrangements. A barge is incapable of doing all these and ultimately will be a source of natural water pollutions. No one thought that the tube wells will someday be a severe source of arsenic, rather than the best solution for drinking water. Someday the barge mounted power plants may be proven so.)

(4) Does bangladesh have the enough resources to be able to buy huge amount of foreign currencies (even not being sure whether tomorrow the mostly accepted foreign currency will be dollar, euro, pound, or any other currencies that the current worldwide economic turmoil may result in inevitably.)?

(Bangladesh bank must boost the foreign currency as much possible based on the means of country and being helped by the exports and money sent to Bangladesh by the wage-earners and the NRBs. The resource shall be increased by appropriately collecting all taxes, stopping bribes, giving due process to the actors of financial frauds, and increasing the trust and cooperation amongst all, by creating a pleasant, stable, and reliable political atmosphere and setting up the rule of law through fully democratic way. Short of it will no way help in this respect. Also to make government debt selling institutions stable, productive, and popular amongst the citizens and the foreigners such that government can sell substantial amount of bonds and other financial products. Government must also aggressively pursue Grants, very low interest loans, and revenue/Toll paid loans for the physical projects. Revenue collection rates and procedures must be sustainably introduced, administered, and make result oriented. Let us install as many traditional stationary power plants as possible throughout the country using these financial resources and this approach will not strain the other sectors.)

(5) Is not water scarce like electric power or even more throughout the country, not only in Dhaka?

(Crises in utility supplied electricity does reduce pumping capacity of water. However, water itself is in crisis. The amount of potable water the the entire country is very little compared to its demand. Underground water has proven detrimental to human health and natural aquafar system. The only presumable both long and short term solutions of drinking water is the surface water. Water of the monsoon shall be stored in natural or artificial conserving containment. Lot more pukurs & dighis have to be dug in and completely protected as the sources of drinking water only and not for bathing, washing and cleaning stuff as used to be done traditionally in the country. Some country programs have to be taken to install underground concrete vaults of large sizes for all house holds, collecting water from rains or natural sources during rainy seasons and using water from there as long as possible. This will reduce the burden on electricity.)

(6) Is it not necessary to stop the practice of allowing the gas flame to remain lit for all times in the kitchen stoves, for conserving gas as well as increasing the fire safety for the homes?

(7) In supplying power by PDB to the consumers, are not two issues most critical, such as the shortages of (1) transmission lines, and (2) theft of energy by the joint effort of the dishonest contractors & consumers (bribe givers) and the dishonest employees of the power distribution sectors such as the meter readers, inspectors, estimators, revenue collectors, section employees and officers, etc. (bribe takers) ? Can these be eradicated from bangladesh? What are the plans and how? Did ethics, religions, and un-imposed weak laws could at all help to resolve this crisis of stealing energy?

(8) Has private sources of producing electric power and selling to Government been considered?

(9) Has the non-traditional means and methods of producing electric power by smaller amount form the natural/renewable sources of energy been planned, studied, public been encouraged to adopt, and attempted to reduce burden on the electric utilities?

(For example, it is easily possible to drive a generator of fairly small to medium sizes by a windmill fan, keeping a whole hose or a housing complex electrified. Solar cells along with batteries can be installed on all roofs, producing enough electricity for that house. It is also possible to miniaturized the model of the hydro-generators and run in the nearby stream, canals, rivers, falls, guisers, and sea/ocean tides. Like the drops of water make an ocean, when all these mini-sources of the electricity productions are added together, it will relieve the national grid a lot.)

(10) Did anybody planned how can be electricity produced when natural gas will be unavailable?

(Natural gas reserve in bangladesh id not even 0.08% of the world's gas reserve. However, the gas consumption in bangladesh is quite high and it is predicted that the natural gas may not be available in Bangladesh after next 10/15 years, if miraculously, not a lot more gas reserves are discovered in the coming decade. So, coal may help but the only viable replacement of gas will be nuclear power source. Bangladesh is planning Russian made reactors which are extremely unreliable, created thousands of accidents in Russia and throughout the then USSR. Please look at India. Even being so big friend, India did not buy nuclear reactors from Russia. India is buying massive amount of nuclear power apparatus and equipment from USA because USA produces the best quality nuclear power products. So, Bangladesh must buy nuclear reactors from better reliable producers such as USA, France, etc. For nuclear power, quality and safety must be looked at before anything else.)

(11) Did Bangladesh think about building smart-grids and installing smart meters?

(Smart grids can receive/deliver power simultaneously from different varieties of sources of different quality and different rates and the smart meter can record different sources of power and the power of different rates, thus better serving the energy needs of the country.)

(12) Is Bangladesh taking serious steps for energy conservation and to encourage the consumers to use low rate powers at off-peak hours and thus reducing peak shaving needs, and be able to live with reduced generating unit sizes and reduced size of transmission/distribution cables?

There may be many more questions but these are some useful thoughts that might contribute to alleviating the power crises in Bangladesh.

Thanks and have a great day.

Regards,
KR

To: dhakamails@yahoogroups.com
From: bd_mailer@yahoo.com
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2009 07:41:36 -0700
Subject: [dhakamails] Solving the Energy Crisis

Solving the Energy Crisis

Salman Rahman and Forrest Cookson

The nation is now trapped in a cruel energy crisis undermining the quality of daily life, disturbing factory production, making examination studies more difficult, reducing the volume of water available in Dhaka and threatening economic development. These are serious consequences. It is not our intention here to blame anyone for actions taken or not taken. What has happened has happened.. However, it is clear to everyone that a strong, action oriented program is needed to overcome the crisis. We have set forth here just such a program. The ideas in this article have been discussed in various forums by many experts. What we offer here is to bring all the threads together into a coherent package. The program outlined can readily be executed with dramatic improvement in the availability of electricity.

It is essential to keep focused on the key actions. There is too much wandering around looking for magic solutions. There are none. Programs that come to fruition in ten year or more are of little help in the immediate crisis that has enveloped the nation, a crisis that could last for a decade if determined actions are not taken. We have become very skeptical about what can be expected as there is a long history of false claims and broken promises from the Government organizations responsible for providing gas and electricity to the nation.

Our approach is very simple. For the next four years the only fuel available for generating electricity is gas. Diesel can be imported for critical generating requirements or for standby; power and solar power can provide some power for some buildings but it is only natural gas that will provide the large amount of additional electricity. To provide this natural gas a series of actions are necessary:

SIX CRITICAL STEPS – COMPLETE IN THREE MONTHS

Close down all the government owned urea plants and divert the gas released to power and industrial use. This must be done promptly, but systematically, simultaneously increasing urea imports. The Government has under consideration closure of the Chittagong urea plant on a temporary basis. We are arguing for shutting down all urea plants for several years to provide gas to fuel a major increase in power. KAFCO will probably have to remain open but the financing of the plant may be reviewed and refinancing at lower interest rates and for a longer time period sought. If it is impossible to close KAFCO at least one should try to get the best possible price for the urea, linking the selling price to the costs of production, not the international price. Closing the urea plants is the only immediate source of additional gas. Without this extra gas additional electricity cannot be produced.

Sign long term agreements to import urea. Now is the time to do so as international price of urea is low.

The improvement of the gas pipelines and installation of compressors to pressure increase pipeline should be implemented immediately without concern for whether the ADB portion of the project finances enough of the total cost. Raising the pressure in the gas pipelines is essential. The PM noted the urgency of this when the project was approved but the completion of the contract is still being worked on. Government should be prepared to finance itself the additional amounts required. Many industries require gas for heating purposes and with the current low line pressures plants face much more difficulty, reducing production and increasing unit costs.

The Government should contract for several large barge mounted power plants as was done in the previous AL government; however, these should be short term contracts for only a few years. These barge units will use much of the gas released from the urea plants. These barge mounted plants should be able to supply 600 MWs additional capacity by the end of the year. We believe that aggressive management of the power generation will enable the Government to have an additional 1000 MWs producing electricity by the end of the year using existing generating capacity and rented barge mounted plants. This will ease the power crisis and provide breathing room for a few years while other fuel sources are developed and the required power plants constructed.

Instruct Bangladesh Bank to begin to buy additional foreign exchange at the rate of $25 million per week to finance the import of fertilizer. We expect that the total bill for urea might come to one billion dollars per year.

Water in Dhaka: The supply of water in Dhaka is significantly reduced as a consequence of power outages and the failure of WASA to provide back-up diesel driven generators. Low water changes, corruption, falling water table, neglect of maintenance for the distribution system have combined to make the water supply system very vulnerable to disruption. There are grand projects to fix these infrastructure problems but action is needed at once to ease the shortages. The Financial Express quotes a WASA official that about Taka 600 million is needed for stand by diesel generators.. This is less than US $10 million; the Government should procure these at once and of necessary airfreight them. In the interim WASA should rent or borrow generators from anyone that will spare them.

FOUR CONTRACTUAL ACTIONS: There are four complex contractual actions to be achieved. These are all rather urgent and should be completed in six months. This is a very demanding task but completion of these tasks is essential to insure the expansion of gas, electricity and urea after the next four years.

Contract for one or two large [about 500MW each] gas fired plants. Once these plants come on line the barges rented on a temporary basis would be sent away. Diverting the gas from the urea factories and improving the capacity of the pipelines will enable gas to be delivered in amounts that will support the private sector and enable the national grid to deliver much more electricity.

Contract for new urea plants that are more efficient users of gas. As coal fired power plants come on line in five years the gas can be sold to the urea factories enabling imports of urea to be curtailed. By that time inefficient gas fired power plants can be decommissioned, and there will sufficient gas for the renewed urea production.

Contract for open pit mines at Barapukaria and Phulbari and associated coal fired power plants. These contracts would target to production of 12 and 15 million metric tons of coal per year displacing coal imports [currently about 5 million mt] and providing ultimately 18 million mt to the power plants [enough for 6000 MWs] and exporting high value coking coal. Contract for three coal fired power plants each for 1000 MWs planned to come on line in about four to five years. When these plants are available gas is switched to new efficient urea plants and peaking plants for the power sector and for direct industrial use.

Accelerate the exploration for gas. Conserve electricity and natural gas by raising the price of both to households and by installing meters on gas connection as rapidly as possible. Price hike of electricity and natural gas may seem to be an unpopular move in the short term but in the long run these steps will prove to be good for the country.

SEVEN PROGRAMS TO IMPROVE THE ENERGY AVAILABIOLITY: These programs are complex and require major efforts; these are important complements to the major actions covered in points 1-10.

Conserve electricity and natural gas by raising the price of both to households and by installing meters on gas connection as rapidly as possible. In addition, existing industrial meters should be checked and monitored to reduce corruption. Further, the government should promote LPG as a residential cooking fuel by raising the price of natural gas and insuring the build up of the availability of LPG. There have been numerous proposals to improve energy conservation including use of energy saving bulbs; these should be implemented. Conservation will pay off but all of this takes time, and will not ease the crisis but by starting now in a major way after three or four years we should see a significant impact lower as demand.

The price of electricity and gas must be raised to insure that production costs including a reasonable return to capital are fully covered. This is essential to encourage conservation. Most actions taken recently encourage use not promote conservation. But it is also essential that the taxation of the sector should not be excessive.

Improve the electricity distribution systems in Dhaka. More than 10% of the electricity generated is lost in the transmission and distribution system. Fixing this is a major undertaking but much can be done in the next two years to reduce heat loss in sub-stations. A systematic program is needed to clean up the network of cables, wires, transformers, and illegal connections. Much progress has been made; it must be accelerated.

The progress made during the Caretaker Government to reduce system losses in gas and electricity must be continued by aggressive administrative and police action. We have learned how much corruption existed in the Government's energy enterprises. Efforts to stop this corruption and improve the performance of the distribution companies must be implemented.

Government policy should focus on regulation and sound policies. The history of the Republic has demonstrated that the Government's operational involvement in the sector is wasteful, inefficient and corrupt. While privatization may be premature, a policy of no new public power plants is urgently needed. It is hard to understand why an approach to the power sector that has failed should continue to be supported and encouraged. A major manpower development is urgently needed for the sector.

Renewable energy: Renewable energy investments will ease demand for electricity. Efforts to use solar power on tall buildings and factories should be promoted with low cost loans while insuring duties and taxes on solar equipment are kept at zero. These efforts should include retrofitting buildings if owners find this economic.

Nuclear power for electricity: Exploration of nuclear energy should go forward. This is long complex process but it is essential to begin. It will not impact the next decade but thereafter this could become an important source of energy. There are also available nuclear batteries – self contained generating units that provide 25-50 MWs. These are expensive but could be used in some instances to provide power to key Government operations.

This program would transform the energy sector in Bangladesh. It would provide the basis for massive increases in manufacturing and job creation; it would provide the electrical power needed for most households and small businesses through the power grid. The essential points of our program are:

· Solve the short run problem---power during the next four years---by directing gas to high priority uses and import urea during this transition period. Use large barge gas fueled power plants for production of electricity right now.

· Carry out a major multi billion dollar investment program: Start open pit coal mining Expand the power system to use coal for the base load and gas for peaking power. Rebuild the urea factories to achieve efficient plants. Build the transmission, distribution systems for gas and electricity that will be needed to complement the production of energy. Accelerate the exploration for gas. Mount a major program to develop the manpower needed for this massive energy development program.

· Implement the pricing, conservation, and ownership policies that the energy sector so badly needs.

Bangladesh stands before a tremendous economic and social hazard. Without bold, decisive action the nation will face years and years of power shortages. The wear and tear on the generation and distribution system may lead to a slow steady reduction in the availability of electricity. Just staying even will prove difficult. Without our program these shortages will cumulate making things worse: equipment will burn out, power plants will be over stressed and collapse from inadequate maintenance; we will become used to power outages of 8 hours per day; and there will be little growth of the manufacturing sector. Never have so many persons been trapped like this. The ideas we have set out here have been thought about by many persons. There is no other solution that will produce prompt results with a high probability of success. Continuation on the present path will lead to national disaster.

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[chottala.com] Lebanese in Shock Over Arrest of an Accused Spy - NY Times

Lebanese in Shock Over Arrest of an Accused Spy

By ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: February 18, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/world/middleeast/19lebanon.html?_r=1&hp

MARAJ, Lebanon — For 25 years, Ali al-Jarrah managed to live on both sides of the bitterest divide running through this region. To friends and neighbors, he was an earnest supporter of the Palestinian cause, an affable, white-haired family man who worked as an administrator at a nearby school.

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Ali al-Jarrah

To Israel, he appears to have been a valued spy, sending reports and taking clandestine photographs of Palestinian groups and Hezbollah since 1983.

Now he sits in a Lebanese prison cell, accused by the authorities of betraying his country to an enemy state. Months after his arrest, his friends and former colleagues are still in shock over the extent of his deceptions: the carefully disguised trips abroad, the unexplained cash, the secret second wife.

Lebanese investigators say he has confessed to a career of espionage spectacular in its scope and longevity, a real-life John le Carré novel. Many intelligence agents are said to operate in the civil chaos of Lebanon, but Mr. Jarrah's arrest has shed a rare light onto a world of spying and subversion that usually persists in secret.

Mr. Jarrah's first wife maintains that he was tortured, and is innocent; requests to interview him were denied.

From his home in this Bekaa Valley village, Mr. Jarrah, 50, traveled often to Syria and to south Lebanon, where he photographed roads and convoys that might have been used to transport weapons to Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group, investigators say. He spoke with his handlers by satellite phone, receiving "dead drops" of money, cameras and listening devices. Occasionally, on the pretext of a business trip, he traveled to Belgium and Italy, received an Israeli passport, and flew to Israel, where he was debriefed at length, investigators say.

At the start of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli officials called Mr. Jarrah to reassure him that his village would be spared and that he should stay at home, investigators said.

He was finally arrested last July by Hezbollah, which now has perhaps the most powerful intelligence apparatus in this country. It handed him to the Lebanese military — along with his brother Yusuf, who is accused of helping him spy — and he awaits trial by a military court.

Several current and former military officials agreed to provide details about his case on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss it before the trial began. Their accounts tallied with details provided by Mr. Jarrah's relatives and former colleagues.

It is not the family's first brush with notoriety. One of Mr. Jarrah's cousins, Ziad al-Jarrah, was among the 19 hijackers who carried out the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, though the men were 20 years apart in age and do not appear to have known each other well.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, declined to discuss Mr. Jarrah's situation, saying, "It is not our practice to publicly talk about any such allegations in this case or in any case."

Villagers here seemed incredulous that a man they knew all their lives could have taken money to spy for a country that they regard with unmixed hatred and disgust.

Many maintained his innocence. But Raja Mosleh, the Palestinian doctor who was his partner for years in a school and health clinic near here, did not.

"I never suspected him before," Dr. Mosleh said. "But now, after linking all the incidents together, I feel he's 100 percent guilty."

"He used to talk about the Palestinian cause all the time, how he supported the cause, he supported the people, he liked everybody — this son of a dog," Dr. Mosleh added, his voice thick with contempt.

Mr. Jarrah would often borrow money to buy cigarettes, apparently posing as a man of limited means. Investigators say he received more than $300,000 for his work from Israel.

Only recently did he begin to spend in ways that raised questions. About six years ago, neighbors said, he built a three-story villa with a terra-cotta roof that is by far the grandest house in this modest village of low concrete dwellings. Outside is a small roofed archway and a heavy iron gate, and on a recent day a German shepherd stood guard.

Dr. Mosleh asked him where he got the money, and Mr. Jarrah said he got help from a daughter living in Brazil. It is a natural excuse in Lebanon, where a large portion of the population receives remittances from relatives abroad.

Mr. Jarrah also had a secret second wife, according to investigators and his former colleagues. Unlike his first wife, Maryam Shmouri al-Jarrah, who lived in relative grandeur with their five children in Maraj, the second wife lived in a cheap apartment in the town of Masnaa, near the Syrian border. This apparently allowed Mr. Jarrah to travel near the border in the unremarkable guise of a local working-class man.

Mr. Jarrah has said he was recruited in 1983 — a year after Israel began a major invasion of Lebanon — by Israeli officers who had imprisoned him, according to investigators. He was offered regular payments in exchange for information about Palestinian militants and Syrian troop movements, they said.

After Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, thousands of Lebanese from the occupied zone in the south were tried and sentenced — mostly to light prison terms — for collaborating with Israel.

Far from the border, a different class of collaborators, rooted in their communities, persisted. A few have been caught and sentenced.

Mr. Jarrah's motives remain a mystery. He said he tried to stop, but the Israelis would not let him, investigators said.

It all came to an end last summer. He went on a trip to Syria in July, and when he returned he said he had been briefly detained by the Syrian police, his first wife said. He seemed very uneasy, not his usual self, she said.

He left the house that night, saying he was going to Beirut, and never returned, Mrs. Jarrah said. Only three months later did she get a call from the Lebanese Army saying it had taken custody of him.

A few weeks ago, Mrs. Jarrah said, she was allowed to see him. He looked terrible, exhausted, she said.

Lebanese security forces released a photograph of Mr. Jarrah, taken before his arrest. In it, he appears against a blue and white backdrop, dressed in a formal dark shirt, wearing an enigmatic smile.

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, and Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem.