US-backed army chief elected Lebanon’s president, ending years-long stalemate
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/09/middleeast/joseph-aoun-elected-lebanon-president-intl/index.html
Former army chief Joseph Aoun after being elected as Lebanon's president at the parliament building in Beirut on January 9
Lebanon’s parliament has elected the US-backed army chief to be the country’s new president, ending a years-long political stalemate and presidential vacuum.
Army chief Joseph Aoun was voted president after two rounds of voting. This came after a robust efforts by Saudi Arabia and the United States to rally support for Aoun, who is close to Washington and Riyadh.
After he was declared president, Aoun effectively stepped down as army chief. He arrived in parliament to be sworn in dressed in civilian clothing.
In his acceptance speech, Aoun hailed the dawn of a “new era” in Lebanon, vowing to disentangle the country from its myriad economic and political crises. He also made a rare promise to “monopolize weapons” under the mandate of the state, a clear allusion to the arsenal of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
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“The Lebanese state – I repeat the Lebanese state – will get rid of the Israeli occupation,” Aoun said his speech. The new president also raised the specter of a Lebanese “defensive strategy” against Israel – officially classified as an enemy state – without Hezbollah. The armed group was long considered the de facto military force tasked with fighting Israel.
“My era will include the discussion of our defensive strategy to enable the Lebanese state to get rid of the Israeli occupation and to retaliate against its aggression,” said Aoun.
Syrians mark a month since al-Assad’s overthrow with concert in capital
It’s been a month since Bashar al-Assad was overthrown, ending more than five decades of his family’s rule in Syria and almost 14 years of civil war. Al-Assad escaped to Russia on December 8 and has not been seen since.
On Wednesday night, thousands attended a concert in the capital Damascus to celebrate the uprising, a day which some Syrians thought would never come.
Reporting from Damascus, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor James Bays said people gathered at a basketball centre in the heart of the city for the celebratory concert, marking one month of relative calm and stability.
“There is a real feeling of exuberance here exactly one month after the fall of al-Assad,” he said.
“Outside this stadium you actually have a large poster of al-Assad but now you can just see his hair and forehead. The rest of it has been ripped away as his regime, his army and the whole apparatus … was ripped away exactly one month ago,” he added.
Bays said the proceeds from the concert will go to prominent NGOs, including the White Helmets – the civil defence force that operated during the al-Assad regime to rescue people from the rubble when there was bombardment by the Syrian air force and the Russians.
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