This is a newspaper investigation the World entitled: “ West Africa, at the heart of Hezbollah’s financing networks. “Thanks to the large Lebanese community established in Ivory Coast or Guinea”tells us the French daily, “ the Shiite movement has a solid base for raising funds. It relies in particular on a mafia system, using drug money laundering”. The World went to Abidjan, to the Marcory district “ nicknamed little Beirut »Or “no one dares to talk about “Party of God” and its influence. Yet his shadow looms large. Most Lebanese Shiites in Côte d’Ivoire, and more broadly in West Africa, contribute indirectly to Hezbollah’s war effort in the Middle East through “zakat”an informal tax »explain the World.
Precision : ” No amount is known as the network is vast and opaque. Having become a state within a state in Lebanon, the organization has built a parallel economy that relies on a vast money laundering network linked to drug, diamond, timber and arms trafficking in South America. and in West Africa, benefiting along the way from the complicity of its diaspora.” According to the World« Hezbollah networks are close to the Colombian and Mexican cartels, of which they “wash” part of the income in Africa. A system “sophisticated”, adds the French daily, “a system of embezzlement intended for the Shiite movement also made possible by the corruption of local elites.”
Ignored and abandoned
Also on the front page is the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2024. On this occasion, the Wall Street Journal et le Washington Post return to the role of the observers, these female Israeli soldiers stationed near the border with Gaza, and who, well before October 7, had alerted “the increasingly suspicious activities of Hamas”. « But no one reacted”reminds him Wall Street Journal. « Whereas for months, these young women had warned their superiors on several occasions – and with increasing vehemence – that Hamas seemed to be preparing a large-scale attack.” An attack of which some of them were the first victims: “ slaughtered”, “burned alive » or « taken as hostages to Gaza.
The New York Times for its part, affirms that the Israeli observers (a “ exclusively female military unit ») who continue to monitor the borders (but this time in the north of the country), “ are ignored by their command, as they were, before the Hamas attack”. « They are the eyes of the army” along the Israeli border with Lebanon. But according to the Washington Postthey are ” abandoned in the North, after having been abandoned to die in the South. « We are not protected”said one of them, “ our superiors only want to silence us, they don’t want us to complain, so they ignore us even more.” Why such an attitude? According to observers cited by the American daily, “ This may be partly due to deep-seated misogyny in the Israel Defense Forces, where decision-makers are almost always men.
Farewell to a popular actor in France
Michel Blanc died yesterday at the age of 72. His photo is on the front page of Parisianof Release a you Figaro. « From laughter to tears »titre the Parisian, “he leaves a big blank in our lives”. « Funny to tears”laments for his part Release« he was the fragile shadow man of French cinema”. Finally, le Figaro notes: “ anti-heroes die too ». « This is the first time that Michel Blanc has not amused us.”
