The discriminatory Public Prosecution in Lebanon requested that former President Michel Aoun be charged in the case of the Beirut Port explosion on August 4, 2020, according to what a judicial source reported to Agence France-Presse on Tuesday.
The source said that the Cassation Public Prosecutor asked the judicial investigator to “bring charges directly against (former President Michel) Aoun,” on the grounds that he “had prior knowledge of the presence of ammonium nitrate in the port and its danger, without taking the necessary measures or raising the matter before the Supreme Defense Council.”
The source indicated that the Cassation Public Prosecutor on Tuesday handed over his review of the file to the judicial investigator, in which he determined the responsibilities of more than seventy people, including politicians, security and military leaders, and employees, whom the latter had previously claimed.
The indictment remains within the jurisdiction of the judicial investigator, who is expected to issue it in the coming weeks.
Syrian Kurds seek to preserve education in their mother tongue at a time when Damascus reimposes its authority over the Kurdish regions that enjoyed self-rule during the years-long civil war. They welcomed a decree allowing some subjects to be taught in the Kurdish language, but noted that it did not meet their demand for an entire curriculum in the Kurdish language, according to Reuters.
This issue emerged at the beginning of the first academic year since the reintegration of the Kurdish-majority Syrian regions into the state under agreements between Damascus and the Kurdish-led authorities. Students in the Kurdish regions protested against the implementation of a new curriculum in the Arabic language.
The role of the Kurdish language is a sensitive issue for the Kurds. It was banned in schools during the reign of the Assad family, which espoused the Arab nationalist ideas of the Baath Party, but it flourished during the years of Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria.
The opposition ousted President Bashar al-Assad in 2024. Syria's Kurds now face a rapidly changing reality after the state led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa seized Kurdish-administered areas in an offensive in January, paving the way for negotiations on how to merge their security and civil institutions, as the Kurds seek to preserve as much of their gains as possible.
Before the start of the school year, the Ministry of Education issued a decree recognizing Kurdish as a national language to be taught in areas where Kurds constitute a large portion of the population, responding to a long-standing Kurdish demand.
But the Kurds, who have been educated almost entirely in the Kurdish language since 2012, object to this decision because it limits the teaching of the Kurdish language to three lessons per week.
Kurdish officials said that the decree provided the option of teaching geography, history, social sciences and philosophy in the Kurdish language, but science and mathematics would be taught in Arabic under the new arrangements.
Suzan Ali (16 years old) said: “I studied the Kurdish language from the beginning of my studies until the eleventh grade, and now they say that they will allocate only three classes to the Kurdish language. “This is unacceptable.”
She added: “Half of the curriculum is in Kurdish and the other half is in Arabic. We cannot study in Arabic. We must study in our mother tongue because we studied in the Kurdish language from the beginning, and we must continue to do so until university.”
Merva Amo (18 years old) said that she protested to demand “a return to the previous curriculum in which all subjects were taught in the Kurdish language,” and that she would continue to demonstrate.
The Ministry of Education did not respond to a request for comment.
Education Minister Muhammad Abd al-Rahman Turku said before Parliament yesterday, Monday, that there are two opinions, one of which calls for teaching the Kurdish language along with other subjects, and the other calls for translating the entire curriculum into the Kurdish language.
He added, in excerpts from the session published by the “Afrin Now” news network on social media, that translating the entire curriculum into the Kurdish language is very difficult due to the necessity of providing teachers for all specializations, wondering how the student will complete his university studies.
On Tuesday, the US Ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, toured Zawtar al-Gharbiyya and Qaqaiya al-Jisr in southern Lebanon, accompanied by a delegation from the Council for Development and Reconstruction, inspecting service facilities and infrastructure. His tour coincided with a movement of Israeli army vehicles inside neighboring Zawtar al-Sharqiya and the flight of an Israeli drone in the airspace of the region, at a time when Israel reiterated talk about the faltering of the “experimental zones” experiment, of which Zawtar al-Gharbiya was one of its first arenas.
Issa began his tour from the Monastery of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Zawtar al-Gharbiya, where he inspected a number of facilities, while simultaneously recording the movement of Israeli vehicles inside Zawtar al-Sharqiya, and an Israeli drone flew over the area.
The tour gains importance given the position of Zawtar in the field arrangements that the south witnessed during recent months, after Zawtar al-Gharbiyya formed one of the towns of the first experimental phase, while Zawtar al-Sharqiya remained outside the Lebanese army’s deployment with the continued Israeli presence and movements there.
On July 21, 2026, the Lebanese Army began deploying its units inside Zawtar al-Gharbiyya, within the first phase of the “experimental areas,” which also included Faroun and Srifa.
The army confirmed that day that its units entered Zawtar al-Gharbiya, after coordination with the military coordination group for Lebanon, while it did not enter Zawtar al-Sharqiya. He announced that the Israeli forces approached the outskirts of the town and opened fire near his members while carrying out the deployment mission, which obstructed its completion.
Since then, Zawtar al-Sharqiya has remained outside the Lebanese army’s deployment, and has witnessed, over the past months, Israeli operations that targeted homes, buildings, and public facilities. Last August, the Lebanese Army announced that Israeli operations led to the destruction of the municipal building, the public school, the dispensary, a nursery for children, and a number of homes, and it considered that the continuation of these operations would hinder the deployment of its units and the return of residents.
The American ambassador's tour coincided with Israel's re-presentation of the issue of the "experimental areas" from a different angle, as the Israeli "Channel 14" said that the "experimental path" to disarm Hezbollah had failed, holding the Lebanese army responsible for not implementing what Tel Aviv considered to be obligations required of it.
The channel quoted an Israeli political source as saying that estimates in Tel Aviv indicate, according to the Israeli account, that there is coordination between elements in the Lebanese army and Hezbollah, adding: “The experimental path has failed, and there is no other definition that can be given to it.”
These accusations remain part of the Israeli position on the performance of the Lebanese army, in exchange for repeated Lebanese assurances that the army is implementing the decisions of the political authority and deploying within the capabilities and field conditions available to it, while Lebanon links the completion of its deployment to the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the cessation of operations that hinder its entry into a number of areas.
Israel had previously informed Washington of its objection to expanding the experiment in experimental areas, and linked the move to new areas to conditions related to the disarmament of Hezbollah and monitoring and verification mechanisms, at a time when Lebanon is insisting that the cessation of operations, destruction, and Israeli withdrawal be a gateway to the completion of the army’s deployment.
During the American delegation’s presence in Zawtar al-Gharbiya, Israeli vehicles were recorded moving inside Zawtar al-Sharqiya, coinciding with the flight of a drone over the region’s airspace.
This was accompanied by the continuation of military operations in a number of regions of the south, where bombing and bombing operations affected towns and regions. Among them were Al-Mansouri, Kafr Benit, Ali Al-Taher, Kunine, and Majdal Zoun, while military and drone aircraft continued to fly over southern areas, reaching Beirut and its southern suburbs.
The escalation came after positions by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which he said that his forces destroyed what he described as “Hezbollah’s largest strongholds” in the heights of Beaufort Castle and Ali Al-Taher, announcing the continued destruction of “the infrastructure in the security zone in Lebanon,” and indicating that the operations have not ended yet.
During his tour in Zawtar Gharbiya, Issa, accompanied by employees from a cell phone company, inspected a communications station that the company had installed near the Monastery of Our Lady of the Annunciation.
Restoring communications services falls within the efforts aimed at rehabilitating the affected towns and providing the necessary resources for the return of residents, in addition to restarting electricity networks, opening roads, removing rubble, and repairing public facilities.
After Zawtar al-Gharbiyya, Issa moved to the town of Qaqaiyat al-Jisr, where he inspected the bridge as part of his tour of infrastructure projects in the region.
The Qaqiat al-Jisr - Zawtar al-Gharbiyya line constitutes an essential corridor to reach the town, and the Lebanese army took it when it began its deployment in Zawtar al-Gharbiya, last July, in light of the inaccessibility of it from the eastern side of Zawtar.
The bridge is considered one of the vital facilities in the road network linking the Nabatieh region to a number of southern towns, while the file of rehabilitating damaged roads and bridges falls within the projects of restoring services and facilitating the return and movement of residents in areas that witnessed extensive military operations.
