Lebanon

[Petronas]

12 Australians wanted over Hariri’s murder
2005-02-19 01:14:51

Lebanon’s Justice Minister Adnan Addoum said on Friday that authorities were hunting for twelve Australian men wanted over the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri. Addum said that all the suspects hold the Australian passport and that six of them left Beirut for Australia hours after Monday’s deadly blast, adding that police found traces of explosives on aircraft seats. Hariri was killed in a huge explosion in Beirut which also claimed the lives of additional 16 people. The minister added that there are two more Australians who tried to leave Lebanon after the assassination but missed the flight for unknown reasons. Their location is not known. Interpol agreed to interrogate the twelve suspects, Addoum said. The minister didn’t provide further details and it was unclear what role the men played in the attack. Reports earlier this week said that the Australian government was helping Lebanon investigate Hariri’s murder. ...

http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/article.php?id=3541

[Petronas]

Australian Fundamentalists Cleared from Involvement in Hariri's Death
Beirut, Updated 19 Feb 05, 11:09

Federal police are testing a substance found on the aircraft seats used by 12 men who were investigated over the Beirut bombing that killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. But Australian Federal Police spokesman Kirk Cunningham said initial forensic tests had proved negative. More comprehensive tests were being conducted Saturday, he told the Sydney Morning Herald. "But we're not expecting a positive result, Cunningham said. "We're not treating them as persons of interest." They were all cleared of suspicion and allowed to go home.

Lebanese authorities contacted Interpol in Sydney over the departure from Beirut to Australia of the 12 alleged Australian Muslim fundamentalists on the day of the bombing. Sniffer dogs picked up suspicious scents in the aircraft seats occupied by the men after they arrived in Sydney on Wednesday.

Keysar Trad, Vice-President of the NSW Lebanese Muslim Association, said the men had been on a pilgrimage to Mecca with Australia's Muslim Mufti Sheikh Tageddine Hilali, who testified that they belonged to the Sofi sect and stopped in Beirut with him on the way back from Mecca to visit relatives.

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&015A15E8A711C095C2256FAD002C908B

[Petronas]

Opposition Declares Intifada to Rescue Lebanon from Syria's Tutelage
Beirut, Updated 19 Feb 05, 08:50

The Lebanese opposition declared an "uprising for independence" Friday and called for the pro-Syrian regime to step down so that a new government can be formed to oversee a Syrian military pullout from Lebanon. "In response to the criminal and terrorist policy of the Lebanese and Syrian authorities, the Lebanese opposition declares the democratic and peaceful intifada (uprising) for independence," said leading opposition figure Samir Franjieh. "We demand the departure of the illegitimate regime," Franjieh said, reading a final statement at the home of Druze leader Walid Jumblat after an opposition meeting at the Bristol hotel.

Jumblat did not attend the meeting, for days after the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri, for "security reasons," aides said. The meeting was attended by more than 40 of the parliament's 128 members, as well as dozens of political activists. The opposition called for "the formation of an interim government as a supreme national necessity to protect the Lebanese people and ensure the immediate and complete pullout of Syrian forces from Lebanon ahead of free and honest legislative elections." They also declared "the suspension of any political or legal debate in parliament before the truth is uncovered."

"We call on parliament ... to hold a plenary session to discuss the series of assassinations which started with the attempt on Marwan Hamadeh, with the martyrdom of Rafik Hariri and the targeting of former minister (Bassel) Fleihan" in the same blast that killed Hariri.

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&EB7A6AEA0959079942256FAC0060D3D5

[Petronas]

Hariri's assassin traveled to Syria, Iraq
February 20, 2005

BEIRUT — The assassin who killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri traveled from Iraq through Syria to carry out the attack, according to the Beirut judge leading the inquiry into the bombing. Rachid Mezher, senior investigator for the Lebanese military tribunal, said the organizers had been recruited from Islamist groups linked to Syria and operating against the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. Investigators believe that a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into the 60-year-old billionaire's convoy Monday, killing him and 16 others.

Judge Mezher said he believed that a video, in which Ahmed Abu Adas said the attack was the work of "Victory and Jihad in Greater Syria," was a genuine claim of responsibility. Judge Mezher's opinion, however, is far from universally accepted. Shortly after the attack, Justice Minister Adnan Addoum said the claim could be an attempt to mislead investigators, the Associated Press reported from Beirut.

Abu Adas, 23, a Palestinian Lebanese believed to have fled the country, attended two Beirut mosques known to be recruiting grounds for the Ansar al-Islam group linked to the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi. Investigators suspect that the mosques have ties to Sheik Abderrazak, a Damascus cleric who has helped terrorists travel through Syria to Iraq.

The Beirut attack bore similarities to suicide bombings carried out in Iraq by Zarqawi, who leads the al Qaeda organization in Iraq. Abu Adas, who also spent time in Saudi Arabia, is thought to have fought in Iraq. "We know that Adas had Saudi Arabian nationality and used his passport to travel to Iraq and Syria," said Judge Mezher in an interview. "The man converted to strict Muslim beliefs two years ago and returned to Lebanon only recently after traveling to Iraq."

The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad denies involvement in the attack and has rebuffed calls from Lebanese leaders and the United States to remove Syria's 15,000 troops from Lebanon. Syria has a long history, however, of using extremist groups in Lebanon as proxy killers.

Mr. Hariri, prime minister for 10 of the 14 years since the civil war ended, resigned last year after Syrian pressure led to the extension of the term of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, his chief rival. Previously pro-Syrian, Mr. Hariri had planned to campaign during May's general election against Syrian influence.

Walid Jumblatt, now the leading Lebanese opposition leader, has accused Damascus of commissioning the attack on Mr. Hariri. He is now at the vanguard of a popular movement to force the Syrian troops out of Lebanon. "He got killed and we are all on that list; there is no immunity," Mr. Jumblatt said. "Syria is responsible. Who else? We don't want to open war with Syria, but they must go out." Many Lebanese believe that Mr. Hariri's death was commissioned by Syria's Mukhabarat intelligence service, and they fear that the official Lebanese investigation will be a whitewash.

The AP reported yesterday that nobody answered at the door of Abu Adas' family residence. Several neighbors said Abu Adas was reclusive, did not have a job and prayed five times a day at a nearby mosque. The neighbors said he sported a beard and wore clothing similar to that worn by Muslim fundamentalists and had not been seen for several weeks, according to the AP. Authorities had said they confiscated computers, tapes and documents. They said the man's whereabouts were unknown, and that family members had been detained for questioning.

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050219-115742-3462r.htm

[Petronas]

Lebanese protestors demand 'Syria out'
Updated: 10:18 a.m. ET Feb. 21, 2005

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Tens of thousands of opposition supporters shouted insults at Syria and demanded the resignation of their pro-Syrian government in a Beirut demonstration Monday, marking a week since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Beating drums and waving Lebanese flags, those of their own parties and portraits of past leaders killed during the 1975-90 civil war, the protesters gathered at the site where Hariri was killed Feb. 14 in a bombing that the opposition blames on Damascus. Some in the crowd yelled “Syria out!” and “We don’t want a parliament that acts as a doorkeeper for the Syrians,” competing with loud insults shouted against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In Damascus, Arab League chief Amr Moussa said Syria will “soon” take steps to withdraw its army from Lebanese areas in accordance with a 1989 agreement. It was not clear whether that meant Syria would completely leave Lebanon as demanded by the international community. Moussa spoke after a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad. Syria itself has made no announcements about troop withdrawals.

Protesters wore scarves of red and white — the colors of Lebanon’s flag — which have become the symbol of the opposition’s “independence uprising,” described as a peaceful campaign to dislodge the pro-Syrian government and force the Syrian army out of Lebanon. Some protesters carried banners reading, “Independence,” and chanted, “The government of puppets must fall” and “Enough blood, leave us alone.” The crowd was estimated in the tens of thousands, with many converging on downtown Beirut from all parts of the Lebanese capital.

“It is my civic duty as a Lebanese to take part in this uprising,” said Youssef Mukhtar, a 47-year-old engineer. “Enough bloodshed and disasters. It is the 21st century, and people should be able to govern themselves. The situation has become unbearable and we have to regain our country.” Many held pictures of Hariri and sang patriotic songs. Some protesters held a copy of the Quran in one hand and the cross in another hand to signify Muslim-Christian national unity. Police and army troops in full battle gear stood guard without intervening, blocking roads with metal barriers. To prevent more potential protesters from reaching Beirut, security forces set up checkpoints on the northern and eastern entrances to the Lebanese capital.

The protest reached its peak shortly before 12:55 p.m., the time that Hariri’s motorcade was blown up, killing him and 16 other people and wounding more than 100. The protesters, chanting “All for the Nation,” the national anthem, observed a moment of silence at the exact time of the bombing and then began converging on the U.N. offices in the downtown Riad Solh Square to hand a letter to representatives of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. On the way, the protesters marched by the nearby Grand Serail, the prime minister’s office, shouting “Syria out!” and “We don’t want an army in Lebanon except that of Lebanon!” The protesters then marched to Hariri’s grave outside the Mohammed Al-Amin Mosque at the central Martyrs’ Square and sang the national anthem. “We want the truth,” said one speaker.

On Sunday, Lebanon said it would cooperate with U.N. investigators looking into the assassinations, but stuck to its rejection of a full-fledged international inquiry.

At the same time the Beirut protest was making its way to the grave, about 500 Lebanese in Kuwait gathered near their country’s embassy, where they stood for a moment’s silence in front of a large poster of Hariri. “What we want is an international committee to uncover the truth,” said Marwan Jamal, a business consultant, 39. “Nobody should think we are divided.”

Hariri’s killing shook Lebanon and sparked an outpouring of sympathy for the man credited with rebuilding the country from the destruction of civil war, cutting across the sectarian divide. Hariri was one of the architects of the 1989 Taif agreement that ended Lebanon’s civil war, which started in 1975. It called for Syrian forces — which had entered Lebanon ostensibly to separate between the warring sides — to withdraw within two years to the eastern Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border. A total withdrawal was to be discussed between the Lebanese and Syrian governments at a later stage.

Syrian forces have redeployed several times since 2000, leaving Beirut and the coastline. Syria currently maintains about 15,000 troops in Lebanon. Syria’s critics in Lebanon have said the withdrawals were tactical and demanded a total pullout and an end to Syrian military intelligence involvement in the country’s politics.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7007059/

[The 801]

Lebanese Ex-Leader to End Exile

LONDON (AP) - Former Lebanese Prime Minister Gen. Michel Aoun said Monday he will return from exile before this year's parliamentary elections and that he may launch his own candidacy if the opposition needs his support.

``I will return before the legislative elections, probably by mid-April,'' Aoun told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Paris. ``And if the situation is critical for the opposition in a region, then I will throw in my personal weight and run in the elections.''

Aoun said he intends to return to live in Lebanon. His statement came on the same day that President Bush urged Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon - which Aoun said he expects to happen before the Lebanese election, which must be held by May.

Asked if he would one day consider running for the presidency, Aoun said he would ``do whatever the Lebanese want me to. ``


Aoun, a Christian, praised Bush's speech in Brussels reasserting American support for Lebanese independence from Syria, and said he had ``high expectations'' about the meeting between Bush and French President Jacques Chirac on Monday evening.


The United States and France initiated a U.N. resolution last September demanding Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon.


Aoun said he was convinced ``without any doubt, of the responsibility of the Syrian regime and its Lebanese puppet government'' in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.


The former commander of the Lebanese army, who fled the country in 1990, did not attend a protest in Paris on Monday in support of the Lebanese opposition. He said French authorities have warned him not to appear in public gatherings due to security risks.


But Aoun said he was not worried about his security once back in Lebanon.


``The Syrians are not in control anymore. Syrian workers and Syrian informers are leaving the country, the Lebanese are taking control again.''


In 2003, Lebanese authorities charged Aoun with actions and comments that ``harm Lebanon's relations with a brotherly country (Syria) and spreading false reports that aim to weaken the state's prestige and standing.'' Aoun was also accused of inciting sectarian strife in Lebanon.


The charges stemmed from Aoun's testimony in September 2003 before a U.S. congressional committee in which he spoke of Syria's ``hegemony'' over Lebanon and called for a withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.


Aoun has dismissed the charges, saying they were politically motivated.


http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2005022116150001459187&dt=20050221161500&w=APO&coview=

[The 801]

Seems like a good time to review:

<Added Later: Note that this chonology fails to include the US perspective. Almost no mention of US. Kind of refreshing, really. >

Timeline of Syrian-Lebanese relations

AFP: 2/15/2005

BEIRUT, Feb 15 (AFP) - Syria, which stands accused by some of orchestrating the bomb attack which killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, has been the effective power in neighbouring Lebanon since it first deployed troops there in June 1976 after the start of the civil war.

Despite successive scalings-down of its military presence, Damascus still has an estimated 14,000 men in the country, considerably fewer than the 35,000 deployed at the height of the war.

Following is a chronology of relations between the two countries since Syrian troops were first posted in Lebanon:


1975

April: Clashes, viewed as the start of Lebanon's 15-year-long civil war, erupt in Beirut.


1976

June: Syrian troops enter Lebanon to restore peace but also to curb the Palestinians.

October: After Arab summits in Riyadh and Cairo, a ceasefire is arranged and a predominantly Syrian Arab Deterrent Force established to maintain it.


1978

March 14: Israel launches major invasion of Lebanon, occupying land as far north as the Litani river, south of Beirut, in reprisal for a Palestinian attack into its territory.

March 19: UN Security Council passes resolution 425 calling on Israel to withdraw from all Lebanese territory, and establishing the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to confirm the withdrawal.

June 13: Israel hands over territory in southern Lebanon to its proxy, a mainly Christian Lebanese militia, ignoring UNIFIL.


1982

June 6: After attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador to Britain, Israel launches full-scale invasion of Lebanon.

September 15: Israeli troops occupy West Beirut.

September 16-18: Phalangist militia slaughter Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in West Beirut, under eyes of Israeli forces.

September 24: First US, French and Italian peacekeeping force arrives in Beirut.


1983

May 17: Israel and Lebanon sign accord on Israeli withdrawal, establishing a security region in southern Lebanon.


1985

June: Most Israeli troops withdraw but some remain to support its proxy force -- the mainly Christian South Lebanon Army (SLA), led by Antoine Lahad.


1986

Lebanon officially cancels May 1983 agreement with Israel.


1988

September: Lebanon has two governments -- one mainly Muslim in West Beirut, and one Christian, in East Beirut led by Maronite General Michel Aoun.


1989

March 14: Aoun declares a "war of liberation" against the Syrian presence.

October: Lebanese national assembly, meeting in Taif, Saudi Arabia, endorses a Charter of National Reconciliation, which leads to the end of the civil war. Taif agreement calls for a Syrian pullback to the eastern Bekaa Valley, but does not set a date for the full pullout.


1990

October 13: Syrian airforces attacks presidential palace and Aoun takes refuge in French embassy, events regarded as marking the end of the civil war.


1993

July 25: Israel attempts to end the threat from Hezbollah and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, in southern Lebanon by launching "Operation Accountability", the heaviest attack since 1982.


1996

April 11: Israelis bomb Hezbollah bases in southern Lebanon, southern part of Beirut and the Bekka, in "Operation Grapes of Wrath".

April 18: Israeli attack on UN base results in death of over 100 Lebanese refugees taking shelter there.

April 26: US negotiates a truce an "understanding" under which Hezbollah and Palestinian guerrillas agree not to attack civilians in northern Israel but recognises Hezbollah's right to resist the Israeli occupation. Lebanon and Syria do not sign up to this but become part of the Israel-Lebanon Monitoring Group, along with US, France and Israel.


1998

October 15: General Emile Lahoud, favoured by Syria, is elected president by parliament.


2000

May 24: After collapse of the South Lebanon Army and rapid advance of Hezbollah forces, Israel withdraws its troops from Lebanon.

October 17: Nabih Berri, considereed a Syrian ally, is re-elected parliamentary speaker.

December 1: Hundreds of Syrian soldiers leave Beirut and settle in the Bekka valley close to the Syrian border.


2001

April 16: First Israeli raid on Syrian position in Lebanon since 1982 in retaliation for a Hezbollah attack on the Chebaa Farms region.

June 14-19: Syria redeploys some of its forces in Lebanon, leaving some 20,000 men on Lebanese soil.


2002

April 3-4: Syria again scales back some of its forces.


2003

February and July: Syria carries out two withdrawals of its forces, bringing the figure down to between 16,000 and 18,000 troops as part of the Taif peace agreement.

April: Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri forms a new government, regarded as the most pro-Syrian since Damascus became involved.


2004

May 11: US imposes sanctions on Syria

September 2: UN Security Council adopts Resolution 1559 calling for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon and respect for its sovereignty.

September 3: Lebanese parliament approves a controversial constitutional amendment giving Lahoud another three years in office.

September: US envoy William Burns visits Damascus to tell Syria it should stop meddling in Lebanon's affairs and pull out its troops.

September 21: Syrian forces evacuate military posts as part of the troop pullback eastwards towards the Syrian border.

October 20: Hariri resigns as prime minster in protest at the dominant role of Damascus in his country to be replaced by pro-Syrian deputy Omar Karameh six days later.

December 13: For the first time since 1975, a united opposition denounces the Syrian presence and calls for the government to resign.

December 18: Syria dismantles its secret service in Lebanon, admitting its presence in the country for the first time.


2005

February 2: Lebanese opposition takes a tougher line on Syria, calling for a total troop withdrawal and endorsing Resolution 1559.

February 14: Hariri and 14 others are killed in a bomb attack in Beirut. Syria, accused of involvement, condemns it as "an odious crime".


02/15/2005 13:47 GMT - AFP

http://turkishpress.com/news.asp?ID=37381

[The 801]

Syria to redeploy troops in Lebanon as pressure mounts
by Nayla Razzouk

BEIRUT, Feb 24 (AFP) - Syria, under intense international pressure to end its tight military and political grip on neighbouring Lebanon, was due to redeploy its troops towards the border on Thursday, Lebanese officials said.

The move comes as the Damascus-backed Lebanese government was bracing for a showdown in parliament that could see it lose a vote of confidence and bring to a head a crisis triggered by the killing of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri 10 days ago.

The troops will move into the Bekaa valley of eastern Lebanon near the border with Syria "within hours," Lebanon's Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mrad told AFP.

But it was not clear if this action, which is in line with a 1989 accord that ended Lebanon's civil war, would lead to a full withdrawal of troops after a near three-decade presence as demanded by the UN Security Council.

Syrian deputy foreign minister Walid Muallem said in Damascus that Syria was ready to withdraw more of its troops in agreement with the Lebanese government but was worried about a security vacuum.

Syria has been under mounting international pressure to pull out its remaining 14,000 troops in Lebanon following the killing of Hariri, which the Lebanese opposition has blamed on Damascus and the regime in Beirut.

"The Lebanese and Syrian leadership have met and decided on the sixth redeployment of the Syrian forces in Lebanon," Mrad said.

"They took the decision to start the redeployment in the next few hours," he said. "After this redeployment, all the Syrian forces will be in the Bekaa."

Mrad said that after the current operation, the two governments would jointly decide on the next steps according to the 1989 Taef accord which put an end to Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.

That accord provides for "the two governments to determine the strength and duration of the presence of the Syrian forces" but does not set a specific deadline for a Syrian withdrawal.

Syrian troops were seen packing their bags and preparing to move in the Aley district northeast of the capital on the main mountain road between Beirut and Damascus.

"We are awaiting the green light," one Syrian officer told AFP.

There have been a series of partial withdrawals since June 2001, which have seen Syrian troop numbers fall from a high of 35,000 after they first moved in a year after the star of Lebanon's civil war. Most are now deployed in the Bekaa valley or around the northern city of Tripoli.

But last September the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1559 sponsored by Paris and Washington demanding the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon, a dismantling of militias and and full respect for its sovereignty.

Lebanon and Syria have justified their rejection of Resolution 1559 by what they say is a continued threat from neighbouring Israel.

"The continuation inside and outside Lebanon of provocations and incitement against Syria and Lebanon risks leading to negative developments that will harm the interests of all concerned," Syria's Muallem warned.

US President George W. Bush ratcheted up the pressure on Syria on Wednesday, demanding that it pull its troops and "secret services" out of Lebanon but stopping short of urging immediate UN sanctions.

Bush, who withdrew his ambassador from Damascus after the Hariri murder, added that parliamentary elections being held in Lebanon in the spring "need to be free, without any Syrian influence".

Deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs David Satterfield is due to travel to Beirut at the weekend to press US demands.

"The presence of foreign forces in Lebanon is in itself destabilizing and needs to be rectified," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Meanhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karameh was preparing for a stormy session on parliament on Monday, when private businesses have also called for a strike.

The Lebanese opposition plans to call a vote of no confidence in the government which took office after Hariri quit in October in a row over Syria's role.

"We are heading towards a confrontation with a regime that is becoming ever more rigid," said opposition MP Antoine Andrawos.

Karameh said Wednesday he was ready to quit, but not before agreeing on a new cabinet in order to avoid a political "vacuum."

A UN team was due in Lebanon Thursday to probe the February 14 bomb blast that killed Hariri and 17 other people in the worst carnage seen in Beirut since the end of the civil war.

The authorities in Beirut have denied any responsibility and agreed to cooperate with the UN commission of inquiry but have rejected a full international probe.

The UN team, which is being led by Irish deputy commissioner Peter Fitzgerald and includes forensic, judicial and political experts, is due to complete its initial investigation within a month.

Adding to the tensions, Israeli warplanes violated Lebanese airspace over the south of the country, drawing retaliatory anti-aircraft fire from the Lebanese army, police said.

http://www.lebanonwire.com/0502/05022411AFP.asp

you gotta regester....

801

[Petronas]

Opposition Slaps Karami for Doubting Army's Ability to Fill Syrian Vacuum
Beirut, Updated 25 Feb 05, 10:04

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has demanded from Syria a complete military withdrawal from Lebanon before April, dismissing an imminent redeployment operation announced by the Assad regime that would reportedly leave only 2,000 troops stationed indefinitely in the Bekaa Valley. Annan set his first purported deadline for Syria's exit in an interview recorded by Al Arabiya network, excerpts of which were aired Thursday evening. The station said it planned to broadcast the full text Friday. But Annan has denied in New York that he had set any specific deadline for the Syrian withdrawal.

The controversy over Annan's quotes followed a flurry of statements by Lebanon's Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Murad and Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Moallem in Beirut and Damascus Thursday on an imminent redeployment operation to begin within hours. Murad said the pullback will be staged from the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon's second largest after Beirut, and from the central mountain ridge overlooking the capital in the Aley district to east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Murad did not elaborate beyond asserting that the imminent redeployment, the sixth in three years, would not involve Syria's intelligence services, although President Bush had insisted in his latest dose of pressure on the Assad regime that the withdrawal be inclusive of Syria's "secret services." Moallem said Syria's stage-by-stage pullout was designed to give the Lebanese army and security departments enough time to take over the vacated areas and avoid a security vacuum that could reignite the civil war. He said the "provocative stance" by Lebanon's opposition toward Syria would reflect adversely on the whole of Lebanon.

Premier Karami has chime in, stunning the nation by televised remarks in which he bluntly said the Lebanese army was not ready yet to fill the vacuum if Syria withdrew its army and intelligence apparatus in one-go. Karami said the army, faced by a Syrian withdrawal in one sweep, might collapse along the same sectarian lines that triggered off the 1975-1990 civil war.

His remarks, along with Moallem's threats, have infuriated the opposition, whose spokesmen ridiculed a Lebanese government inventing alibis to exonerate Syria from guilt in ex-Premier Hariri's assassination. Hariri's blood, the spokesmen asserted, had introduced a sterling Christian-Muslim unity that abolished any concept of renewed civil warfare.

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&7113412165FD5F30C2256FB3002A4271

[Casey]

Lebanon guided by the Nasrullah factor
By Sami Moubayed

DAMASCUS - Any person who was in Beirut on May 24, 2000, the day Hezbollah liberated South Lebanon, understands how immensely popular the enigmatic Hasan Nasrullah is in the country's Muslim, and particularly Shi'ite, community. Any person watching his speech five years later, this month, after the US started to press for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, and the disarming of Hezbollah, of which Nasrullah is the head, knows how easy it might be for the United States to get Syria to leave Lebanon, but how difficult, if not impossible, it would be to disarm or weaken the Shi'ites.

Syria said on Thursday that it was ready to work with the United Nations to implement a Security Council resolution requiring its approximately 17,000 troops to quit Lebanon, but that speeding up the pullout would require stronger Lebanese security forces. International pressure on Syria to pull out its troops and relinquish its political grip on its tiny neighbor intensified after the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. Many Lebanese blame Syria for his killing in a huge blast in Beirut.

The long road to power
Napoleon Bonaparte once said: "I have tasted power. I won't give it up." Disarming Hezbollah, and writing them off the political scene in Lebanon, would be like asking the Iraqi Shi'ites, who have now tasted power after decades of oppression under Saddam Hussein, to leave office willingly, abandon their new-found rights, and return to the wretched state they were in during the previous 100 years.

They would not do that without putting up a bloody war - bloodier even than the Anglo-American war of 2003. The Shi'ites, after all, are a majority in Lebanon, estimated at 1.37 million (40%) of the nation's total population of 3,777,218. So much has been said over the past two weeks about the disarming of Hezbollah and the implementation of UN Resolution 1559 in Lebanon for the withdrawal of its troops. Can that be done with minimal damage to Lebanon, Syria and the Middle East as a whole? Have all parties seriously considered the Nasrullah factor?

The Shi'ites of Lebanon, like the Shi'ites of Iraq, are a majority who have long suffered from Sunni domination, especially during the 400-year rule of the Ottoman Empire in what is present-day Lebanon. Located in the eastern Bekka Valley, they survived during the early years of the 20th century through trade with Palestine, which was cut off completely by the creation of Israel in 1948. Preoccupied with domestic issues, consecutive Lebanese regimes paid little attention to the plight of the Shi'ites, and they were forgotten, politically and economically, during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

While government funds poured into the modernization of Beirut, making it the "Switzerland of the East" during the 1960s, the Shi'ite districts were neglected, receiving 0.7% of the state budget in 1974, although they made up 20% of the population at the time. Their representatives in parliament were all absentee feudal landlords who paid little attention to their plight, making the Shi'ites an economic under-class during the booming years of Beirut.

An Iranian-born cleric named Musa al-Sadr emerged as leader of the Shi'ite community in the 1960s, creating the Movement of the Dispossessed in 1974 for emancipation of the Shi'ites. When the civil war broke out in 1975, he founded a military branch for his party, called Amal (Hope). It was trained by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) of Yasser Arafat and flourished in a poor neighborhood of Beirut, known as al-Dahiyeh, where the majority of the Shi'ites lived and worked.

Sadr's movement demanded more government funds for the Shi'ite community, better infrastructure, increased representation in politics, and more access to government jobs. All of this was only achieved many years later, under the leadership of Nasrullah in the 1990s. Amal fought with the Palestinians and Druze militias of Kamal Jumblatt against Syria and its Christian allies. They soon switched sides to the Syrians, fighting with them against the Christians.

Sadr disappeared, under mysterious circumstances, while on a visit to Libya in 1978, and he was replaced by the less popular Husayn al-Husayni, a man with no charisma or strong power base in the Shi'ite community. Many shed doubt on the ability of Amal to continue in the absence of Sadr, but then came the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, inspiring new fervor among the Shi'ites of Lebanon, who were supported wholeheartedly in their war for emancipation by the new mullahs of Tehran.

In 1980, Husayni was replaced by Nabih Berri, a secular Shi'ite lawyer and former Ba'athist who had excellent relations with Syrian president Hafez al-Assad. During the heyday of Syria's war with Arafat, Amal waged a bloody war against the Palestinians, blaming them for the reprisal attacks carried out by Israel against Arafat's forces in South Lebanon. Amal called it a "war of the camps" against Arafat's PLO. The ones to suffer most from Israeli attacks were the Shi'ites, Berri argued, since 80% of the South was Shi'ite. Radical elements of Amal broke away in 1984, with money from Iranian hardliners, wanting initially to establish an Iran-like theocracy in Lebanon. This group announced its official existence in a press release, naming itself Hezbollah (Party of God).

Amal began to lose popular support among ordinary Shi'ites in the late 1970s for its backing of the Maronite president Elias Sarkis and the secularism of its leader, Nabih Berri. The reputation of Berri suffered a blow when, in 1984, he became minister of state for rebuilding South Lebanon, under president Amin Gemayel, forcing him to concentrate on political matters rather than the military campaigns of Amal.

Husayn al-Husayni also lost credit when he became Speaker of parliament in 1985-92 and diverted his attention from Shi'ite grievances at the grassroots level. In June 1985, Hezbollah highjacked TWA Flight 847, forcing it to land at Beirut airport and taking hostages, who were only released after Israel released 700 Lebanese prisoners. The TWA highjacking increased the popularity of Hezbollah, at the expense of Berri, and its members began to clash openly with both Berri and Dawoud Dawoud, the leader of Amal in South Lebanon.

In February 1988, Hezbollah attracted more supporters by kidnapping Lieutenant-Colonel William Higgens, an American working with UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFL). Dawoud led an offensive against them in South Lebanon, and in September 1988 was ambushed and killed. Some pointed fingers at Hezbollah, others at Berri, accusing him of eliminating Dawoud to clear the stage for his unchallenged leadership of Amal. Berri's rise to pan-Shi'ite leadership was challenged, however, with the rise of radical leaders in Hezbollah who captured the minds and hearts of the Shiite masses from the mid-1980s onwards. It was during this time that Hasan Nasrullah, a young charismatic leader of Hezbollah who was 22 years Berri's junior, began to make headlines as one of the impassioned military commanders of the new Shi'ite militia.

The rise of Nasrullah
Hasan Nasrullah was born on August 31, 1960, in Beirut. His father was a vegetable vendor, originally from Bassouriyeh village in South Lebanon. He once said in an interview with the Cairo-based al-Ahram, "No one from my family had been a cleric before. I am one of those few who have no family claim to this profession."

When the civil war began in 1975, his family moved back to South Lebanon, where he was exposed to Amal, and the charismatic leadership of Musa al-Sadr. Nasrullah became a devoted Shi'ite Muslim, frequenting mosques in his neighborhood and capturing the attention of a cleric named Mohammad al-Ghrawi, who advised him to continue his theology studies in Najaf, Iraq, at the hawza (Islamic seminary) there.

Ghrawi gave him a letter of recommendation to give to ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, who welcomed him and placed him under the guidance of another Lebanese Shi'ite named Abbas al-Musawi, the future secretary general of Hezbollah who was assassinated in 1992. Musawi, in turn, was a disciple of Sheikh Mohammad Husayn Fadlallah, the current supreme Shi'ite cleric in Lebanon, who had returned from his studies in Najaf in 1966.

Until the present, Nasrullah's relations with Fadlallah remained perfect. After the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979, Saddam Hussein began persecuting Shi'ite activity in Iraq, accusing the Shi'ites in Najaf of being agents for ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, working to topple the secular Ba'athist regime with a theocracy.

Nasrullah returned to Lebanon to study and teach at an Islamic institute founded by Musawi in Baalbak. His young age and charisma attracted a large following of Shi'ite men, who began looking up to him for guidance and leadership. Nasrullah was expelled from Amal in 1982 for criticizing its leadership's weakness in light of the Israeli invasion of Beirut, and in 1985 joined the newly founded Hezbollah, bringing along a large number of his students and followers.

He became involved in military activity, and in 1987 succeeded in driving Amal militias out of districts in Beirut. Realizing that he was en route to becoming a Shi'ite leader in his own right, Nasrullah cut short his military career to complete his religious studies in Qom, Iran. Religious credentials are a must for any ambitious Shi'ite leader in the Arab world. He returned to Lebanon in 1989 to lead his commandos against Amal militias in Iqlim al-Tuffah, South Lebanon, and was wounded in battle. He became a member of Hezbollah's central military committee at the age of 29.

Capturing the party
In October 1989, the leaders of Hezbollah supported the Taif Accord, a peace formula orchestrated by Syria and Saudi Arabia to bring an end to the civil war in Lebanon. Hezbollah agreed to release Western hostages it had captured during the war, to back Syria's policies in Lebanon, which included the ousting of the anti-Syrian army commander Michel Aoun, but refused to disarm as all the militias did, claiming that it was needed in South Lebanon to liberate the region from Israeli occupation.

Hezbollah's decision was dictated directly by Iranian president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, and backed by Assad, against the will of hardline clerics in Iran who wanted to establish a theocracy in Lebanon, such as Ali Akbar Mohtashemi.

Nasrullah, by now emerging as one of Iran's favorites in Lebanon, went to Tehran in September 1989 to receive the blessing of Rafsanjani, and worked briefly as Hezbollah "ambassador" to Iran. In 1991, his mentor Musawi became secretary general of Hezbollah, but was ambushed and killed in February 1992 by Israeli helicopters. The Iranians, most notably Rafsanjani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, backed Nasrullah's claims to leadership of Hezbollah, since he had been Musawi's right-hand man, although the party's hierarchy showed that the post should go to Sheikh Naiim Qasim, the deputy secretary general. The blessing of Tehran secured the post for Nasrullah, however, and Qasim remained deputy, a post he still holds today, 13 years later.

The ascent of the young Nasrullah was surprising to a majority of veteran leaders in the Shi'ite community, notably Nabih Berri (by now Speaker of the Lebanese parliament). Only 31 years old, Nasrullah was many years younger than most clerics, regarded politically and religiously inexperienced (he had spent only two years studying theology in Najaf, while Musawi had spent nine).

The same claims were made in April 2004 against Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, who in his late 20s emerged to lead the Mehdi Army and challenge more established Shi'ite leaders, such as the veteran Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He, too, attracted a wide audience because he was challenging conventional leadership, motivating the masses with his patriotic speeches, and using force, rather than diplomacy, to combat the enemy.

The young leader in Lebanon started his new career by promising to avenge Musawi's blood. On March 17, 1992, a car bomb went off at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people. Nasrullah had sent off a clear message to the world: Hezbollah was a key player in Lebanon that could not be dismissed or eliminated that easily, and would strike at its enemies with force if they dared to confront it.

In May 1994, Israeli commandos penetrated into Lebanon and captured Mustapha al-Dirani, a pro-Hezbollah member of Amal. An infuriated Hezbollah responded in July 1994 with a suicide bomber blowing himself up at the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people. Hezbollah denied involvement, to avoid international pressure to limit its casualties to the battlefield, but everybody knew that Hezbollah was behind the bombing, in retaliation for the capturing of Dirani.

For the next 10 years, Nasrullah would mention Dirani, and other senior Hezbollah prisoners, in every single one of his speeches, promising to release them from Israel. He eventually succeeded when conducting a massive prisoner exchange with Israel in January 2004. In July 1993, Israel carried out a seven-day offensive against Hezbollah, and Nasrullah responded by showering Israel with 142 Katyusha rockets.

In April 1996, war broke out again, for 16 days, and Hezbollah responded with 489 Katyusha rockets. In September 1997, Nasrullah's 18-year-old son Hadi was killed in combat, and Nasrullah received news of his death with stunningly calm composure. An article in al-Ahram described Hadi's funeral, saying:
Sayed Hassan Nasrullah entered the hall in solemn dignity accompanied by Jawad, his teenage son. He stopped before each coffin and offered the Fatiha [the Muslim equivalent of the Lord's Prayer] until he reached the one marked 13. He beckoned an aide and spoke to him in a whisper. The aide summoned two workers of the Islamic Health Association, a Hezbollah outfit. They opened the coffin, exposing a body wrapped in a white shroud. Sheikh Nasrullah's eyes closed, his lips trembled as he offered the Fatiha. Slowly, he bent over and tenderly stroked the head of Hadi Nasrullah, his eldest son, who was 18 years old when he died in battle on September 13 [1997]. Jawad, the younger son, stood still and pale next to his father. A deep silence fell on the room while his right hand rested on his son's chest. It was broken by the clicking of a reporter's camera, but promptly returned when Sheikh Nasrullah looked up in cold surprise.
Over the next decade, Katyusha rocket attacks on Israel became common combat methods for Hezbollah, usually in response to Israeli attacks, but they rarely caused real physical or military damage inside Israel. The psychological damage on Israeli citizens, however, was paramount and the Israeli media would portray them as "terror attacks". After every attack, an inflammatory speech by Nasrullah would follow, and hundreds of Hezbollah followers would roam the streets of Beirut, shouting: "Ya Nasrullah Ya Habib, Damer, Damer Tal Abib!" (Oh Nasrullah, our Beloved. Destroy, destroy Israel!"

The popularity that Hezbollah accumulated in the 1990s was due to two things: its massive media machine, and the countrywide educational and social network of schools, charities, hospitals and mosques that they operated, often under Nasrullah's direct supervision. Hezbollah put a lot of money into rebuilding poverty stricken neighborhoods of the Shi'ite community, and subsidizing housing in South Lebanon, after the Israeli withdrawal in 2000.

Much of the money initially came from Iran, but after gaining nationwide popularity in 2000, Hezbollah began to raise a lot of money on its own. On every road leading into Beirut, and on every route to the Shi'ite neighborhoods, Hezbollah youth would create friendly roadblocks, adorned with pictures of Nasrullah, the yellow flag of Hezbollah, booming nationalist songs, and a charity box. These petty donations added up and pretty soon larger donations came in from the emigrant Shi'ite community in the US, Latin America and Africa.

Needy families in the Shi'ite community received sealed envelopes from the secretary general of Hezbollah at the start of every month, with a decent stipend. This endeared him to the lower class of the Shi'ite community, which 30 years earlier Musa al-Sadr had described as the "wretched of the Earth".

Part of Nasrullah's success was that while always appealing to the Shi'ites, he never mentioned pan-Shi'ite loyalties, and always claimed to be speaking for Lebanon. This was not the case with Musa al-Sadr, who rose to power in the 1960s and 1970s through emphasis on Shi'ite nationalism as part of the greater Lebanese nationalism.

This different approach gave Nasrullah a fairly large following among the Sunnis of Lebanon as well. Like Sadr, however, he fully understood the multitude of Lebanon's confessional system, never once calling for an Islamic state in Lebanon, and always proclaiming to be a firm believer in the right of all Lebanese, regardless of religion, to live in harmony. Sadr, on the other hand, had referred to the Shi'ites as "disinherited", criticizing Maronite arrogance toward the Shi'ite community and the disproportionate representation of Shi'ites in senior political posts. While Sadr was highly critical of the Lebanese army for failing to protect the South from Israeli attacks in the 1970s, Nasrullah requested the protection of no one, claiming that Hezbollah can do well in South Lebanon without assistance from the Lebanese army. This was partly in order to maintain his hold over the South, and mainly to have a free hand in launching sporadic cross-border attacks against Israel.

Nasrullah liberates South Lebanon
Nasrullah's attacks on Israel usually resulted in retaliatory attacks on South Lebanon. In 1999, however, Israel's new prime minister Ehud Barak responded by bombing Beirut, causing much discontent among non-Shi'ite civilians who did not want to pay the price for Nasrullah's war. They quickly silenced their grumbling when one year later on May 24, 2000, Nasrullah liberated South Lebanon from the Israeli occupation it had been under since 1978. He was hailed throughout the Arab and Muslim world as a great leader, the only Arab to fight a war and emerge victorious against Israel since 1948.

Many speculated that he would now lay down his arms, and transform Hezbollah into a political party, but Nasrullah had other plans. He refused to disarm, just as he is doing today with regard to Resolution 1559, claiming that Israel still occupies Sheba Farms in South Lebanon.

President Emile Lahhoud could do little to stop him, since by that point Hasan Nasrullah was literarily the strongest man in Lebanon, supported wholeheartedly in his war against Israel by both Syria and Iran. The death of Syria's president Hafez al-Assad in June 2000 left the activities of Hezbollah unchecked inside Lebanon, since only Asad had the influence to dictate policy on the Shi'ite guerillas.

They maintained a strong relationship with Syria's new leader, Assad, based on common objectives in the Middle East, but no longer received orders from Syria. They informed the Syrian government of their plans, received guidance, supported Assad, and often relied on the Syrians for advice, but apart from that, this is where Syrian influence ended.

Nasrullah's team entered the political arena, running for parliament and winning 12 seats in 2000. In 1992, they had won eight seats in the 128-seat parliament. Hezbollah refused to assume government office, however, because according to Nasrullah, this would make the party bear responsibilities for mistakes done by any regime, whereas in the resistance it remains purified from political corruption and blundering.

After liberation of the South, Nasrullah was received as a guest of honor at the Presidential Palace by Lahhoud, and in 2000 met with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan during his visit to Lebanon. In reviewing the situation in Lebanon, Annan had to meet with all decision-makers, and it was impossible for him to sidestep Nasrullah.

Post-2000 Nasrullah
To increase its power base outside Lebanon, Hezbollah began to transmit its al-Manar TV by satellite in 2000. Hezbollah propaganda and Nasrullah's inflammatory speeches could now be viewed by Arabs and Muslims all over the world, much to the displeasure of the US and Israel. In 2004, it was estimated that 10 million people watched al-Manar.

Not once on al-Manar were the Arabs portrayed as defeated. Every single piece of propaganda showed a victorious guerrilla warrior, either during battle striking at Israeli targets, or returning from combat in triumph. Military operations were often filmed in detail, and so was training of Hezbollah commandos. Nasrullah would meet with every single bomber before he/she carried out an operation against Israel. To raise their morale, he would stress that they are going to heaven, because religious war (jihad) was an obligation in Islam, and tell them: "Give my regards to the Prophet Mohammed."

Al-Manar drummed up a lot of support against the US war on Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003. After September 11, 2001, US President George W Bush wanted to name Hezbollah as one of the "terrorist organizations" in the world, but was prevented from doing so by Lebanese premier Hariri, who warned that this would undermine support for the US war on Afghanistan throughout the Arab World. Syria, at the time cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to track down al-Qaeda members in Europe, also lobbied on Hezbollah's behalf in Washington.

Nasrullah increased his cooperation with Syria in late 2000, after the Maronites mobilized behind their patriarch, Mar Nasrullah Boutros Sfeir, demanding that the Syrian army withdraw from Lebanon. This threatened to increase Maronite influence in Lebanon, at the expense of the Shi'ites, and return the community to the plight of the pre-1975 era.

Nasrullah was loud and clear in refusing Sfeir's demands, claiming that the Syrian army in Lebanon was needed so long as the Israelis remained in the Sheba Farms. In March 2001, Sfeir returned from a visit to the US aimed at lobbying international support against the Syrians in Lebanon. He had applied for a meeting with Bush, but had been turned down by the White House.

He was greeted, nevertheless, by thousands of Christian supporters opposed to Syria. Nasrullah responded by staging a public rally in April 2001, where about 300,000 Hezbollah supporters gathered to listen to their inflammatory leader defend Syria. The presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon, Nasrullah argued, "was a regional and internal necessity for Lebanon" and a "national obligation for Syria".

Matters worsened for Hezbollah when Syria fell from Washington's grace after the US war on Iraq in March 2003. As US pressure on Syria increased, so did accusations against Hezbollah, whom Bush described as a "terrorist group" with "global outreach".

At the US Institute of Peace, then deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage said that Hezbollah was an "A-team" of "terrorists" with a "blood debt" to the US, in reference to the bombing of a US Marine Corps base at Beirut airport in 1983, widely believed to be the doing of the Amal militias that became Hezbollah in 1985. Armitage threatened that Hezbollah's time would come, and meanwhile, think-tanks, US media and neo-conservatives described the Shi'ite militias as the next al-Qaeda.

Yet nobody made any move against Hezbollah, because the Shi'ites of Iraq would not hear of it. By 2004, the US was involved in an all-out war with militant Shi'ites in Iraq, headed by Muqtada, arousing much anger among the community, which comprises 60% of the Iraqi population.

The US could not afford another Shi'ite war in the Middle East, which would turn all the Shi'ites of Iraq, and not only Muqtada's Mehdi Army, into enemies of the United States. Nasrullah can, with ease, call them into combat and unleash hell for the Americans in Iraq, especially since some media reports are saying that he has already set up cells for Hezbollah in Iraqi cities like Basra and Safwan, a fact that he denies.

Instead of taking action against him, Washington tried to isolate the Shi'ite guerrillas of Lebanon by getting Canada to label them a "terrorist organization" in 2002, followed by Australia in mid-2003. The European Union, however, declined to follow suit, yet al-Manar was forbidden from broadcasting in France in 2004.

Then came the assassination of Hariri this month. Hariri was believed to have been behind the passing of UN Resolution 1559 in 2004 calling for Syrian troop withdrawal from Lebanon and the disarming of Hezbollah. The Lebanese opposition, along with the US, pointed accusations for the murder against Syria, claiming that it had failed to protect Hariri, or even ordered his elimination since he had joined the opposition in late 2004 to oppose renewing the presidential mandate of Lahhoud, Syria's No 1 man in Lebanon, until 2007.

While the Druze rallied around their leader Jumblatt, a onetime puppet of Damascus, in calling on the Syrians to leave Lebanon, the Maronites rallied around their leaders, and so did most of Hariri's Sunnis, who were accusing Syria of having failed to protect their leader. Standing alone in the fight for Syria were Hezbollah and the Shi'ites of Lebanon. Nasrullah responded to the massive demonstrations that took over Beirut after Hariri's death by calling for a public rally on the Shi'ite ceremony of Ashura, attracting thousands of Hezbollah followers.

The Ashura event, usually broadcast exclusively by al-Manar, was aired on all Arabic and Lebanese satellite stations, reportedly at Nasrullah's request. Particular emphasis was placed on the number and power of Shi'ite militias in Lebanon, who roared while clad in black: "Death to Israel!" Nasrullah stressed that contrary to what many were saying, he did not have cells for Hezbollah in Iraq.

Iraqi Interior Minister Falah Hasan al-Naqib had said earlier that his government had arrested 16 members of Hezbollah in Iraq. "Let Iraq utter the full name of one of them," Nasrullah replied. He refused the internationalization of the Syrian-Lebanese crisis, demanding that all conflicting parties sort out their differences among themselves.

"Today, our responsibility and commitment for a nation make it obligatory for all parties to avoid further deterioration. God forbid, if the roof collapses, it collapses on all of us." He added, "We must not repeat mistakes of the past," in reference to the civil war that led to the killing of 250,000 people, 15% of the population of Lebanon. "Let us discuss, calmly and rationally, the implementation of Resolution 1559 and the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon," he added.

Hezbollah described the Ashura march this year as "a massive rally in defense of the resistance". "We gather today to express the people's will to protect the resistance movement against all attempts that aim at eliminating its presence and ending its role," Nasrullah said.

And that is exactly what Nasrullah will do: work for the protection of his interests, those of Syria, and the Shi'ites of Lebanon, against all external meddling by the US.

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GB26Ak03.html

[Casey]

Lebanon pledges full cooperation with int'l investigation team

www.chinaview.cn 2005-02-26 14:09:05

BEIRUT, Feb. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- The Lebanese authorities will do their best to cooperate with the UN-appointed commission to investigate the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh and Justice Minister Adnan Addoum made the remarks Friday while meeting with the three-memberteam of Irish police officers led by Peter Fitzgerald, which arrived here late Thursday.

The team is expected to complete their initial investigation within a month.

The Lebanese government has appointed a senior military officerin charge of communication between the Interior Ministry and the team, whose tasks are investigating, collecting information and expressing opinions, said Franjieh.

During the meeting, the team briefed the two ministers on theirworking plan.

Hariri, 60, died on Feb. 14 when his motorcade was blown up by a suicide car bomber in western Beirut seafront. At least 14 others were killed.

It was too early to say who killed Hariri who resigned as primeminister last October although opposition held Syria and its allied Lebanese government responsible for Hariri's murder.

The bombing has also led to renewed international pressure for Syria to withdraw its 14,000 troops from neighboring Lebanon. Enditem

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-02/26/content_2622079.htm

[Petronas]

Lebanon protesters defy rally ban
Monday, 28 February, 2005, 11:50 GMT

Lebanese opposition supporters have held a rally in Beirut demanding the resignation of the government, in defiance of a ban on demonstrations.
About 10,000 protesters - many of whom waved Lebanese flags - also called on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. Many demonstrators blame Syria for the recent killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The rally comes as parliament meets to discuss an opposition-sponsored motion of no-confidence in the cabinet. MPs observed a minute's silence in memory of Hariri as the debate began on Monday.

Prime Minister Omar Karami - who took office after Hariri resigned in last year - said those who accused his government of responsibility in the killing committed a "grave injustice". Outside parliament opposition supporters called on the cabinet to stand down and chanted: "We want no other army in Lebanon except the Lebanese army!" Opposition leader Akram Shehayeb urged soldiers nearby to join the rally.

The protestors had spent the night on Martyrs Square wrapped in blankets or under tents, before the ban on demonstration came into force at 0500 (0300 GMT). Army checkpoints on roads into Beirut turned away cars and buses carrying people into the city. But there have been no reports of soldiers taking any action against the protestors who were already in the city centre.

As the protest began US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield met Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud. Mr Satterfield on Sunday called for a "credible investigation" into Mr Hariri's killing, and reiterated Washington's demand that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon "as soon as possible". Lebanon has said it will allow external experts to aid the inquiry into the assassination, but has dismissed US and French demands for a full international investigation.

Opposition leader Walid Jumblatt on Monday urged MPs to vote against the government. "We don't want Lebanese and Syrian intelligence controlling Lebanon," he added.

Syria denies being responsible for the massive car bombing that killed Mr Hariri two weeks ago. Following the assassination, Damascus has come under fresh pressure from the international community to withdraw from Lebanon.

Many schools and businesses remained shut across Lebanon on Monday, following a call by the opposition for a general strike.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa has rejected calls for a full withdrawal from Lebanon, saying this is something not even the Lebanese want. Damascus said last week that it would draw it troops back from western Lebanon to areas nearer the Syrian border, though it did not specify when. The Syrian presence is expected to be a key issue in elections due to be held in Lebanon this summer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4303133.stm

[The 801]

February 28, 2005
Lebanonwire

Gunmen force US envoy to change venue for Beirut meeting

BEIRUT, Feb 28 (AFP) - The presence nearby of some 20 gunmen forced US envoy David Satterfield to change the venue of planned talks with Lebanon's top Sunni Muslim cleric Monday, aides of the mufti said.

Satterfield had been due to meet Mohammad Rashid Kabbani at his offices in the Aisha Bakkar neighbourhood of central Beirut, the sources said.

But when about 20 plainclothes militiamen appeared nearby, Kabbani aides alerted the army and recommended that the venue be switched to the cleric's home. The gunmen melted way before troops arrived.

Supporters of the pro-Syrian government have called on officials to boycott meetings with the US envoy, deriding him as the "the Bremer of Lebanon" in reference to former Iraq civil administratror Paul Bremer.

The US deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs arrived in Beirut Saturday to press UN Security Council demands for a withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon.

He has met Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammud, as well as leaders of the anti-Syrian opposition who want an immediate pullout of its 14,000 soldiers.

http://www.lebanonwire.com/0502/05022810AFP.asp

[EbolaMonkey]

Lebanese Government Resigns

Like my mom always told me - lie down with dogs and you get up with fleas. Looks like the Lebanese people didn't like their prime minister lying down with Syrians ...

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/02/28/lebanon-demonstrations050228.html

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/pix/lebanonprotest050228_ap_7192860.jpg

[Ono]

Hezbollah Declares Full Support for Syria

By HASSAN M. FATTAH
Published: March 6, 2005


BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 6 - The Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah declared its full support for Syria today, presenting a direct challenge to opposition groups after Syria promised to gradually withdraw troops from Lebanon.

Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, spoke to reporters today in his stronghold in southern Beirut, breaking weeks of relative silence over the crisis concerning Syria's presence in Lebanon. He called for Lebanese to "express their gratitude" to Syria by joining a demonstration on Tuesday against United Nations Resolution 1559, which calls for Syria's withdrawal and Hezbollah's disarmament.

"I invite all Lebanese to this meeting to refuse foreign interference," he said.

Although he acknowledged that a Syrian pullout was a reality, he stressed that Syria must be able to leave with honor - a reaction to repeated statements by the Bush administration and Lebanese opposition groups calling for a quick and complete pullout of Syrian forces.

Sheik Nasrallah's statements came a day after President Bashar al-Assad of Syria announced an eventual pullout from Lebanon, promising an immediate redeployment of Syrian troops into the Bekaa Valley, followed by a second move to areas "near the Lebanese Syrian border." Late Saturday evening, Syrian officials clarified Mr. Assad's statements, insisting that the redeployment would be to the Syrian side of the border.

Mr. Assad and President Emile Lahoud of Lebanon are expected to meet with senior government officials in Damascus to outline the details of the pullback. Lebanon's defense minister told The Associated Press today that Syrian troops were to begin moving on Monday, though there were no signs today of any preparatory movement at bases in many Lebanese towns.

For weeks, Hezbollah, which maintains a well-armed, 25,000-man militia in Lebanon and commands the support of hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims in the country, has been a political wild-card. Throughout the recent crisis, in which public outrage led to the breakup of a strongly pro-Syrian government, the group kept a relatively low profile, never wholeheartedly offering its backing to a Syrian presence and never extending its hand to the opposition, which has sought to get Hezbollah into its camp.

"This was really a warning to the opposition that they were getting a little carried away by all the talk of democracy and all the attention," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at Lebanese American University in Beirut. "It was Nasrallah's way of saying we are here, we have been quiet long enough, and are now going to have our say."

Hezbollah, which was started in the early 1980's with financing from Iran and forged an alliance with Syria in the early 90's, has built a broad support base by providing social services and health care in Lebanon's impoverished southern suburbs. And in recent years, Hezbollah has worked to refashion itself as a political party, with 13 members in Lebanon's current parliament.

In many ways, Hezbollah's fate has been tied to Syria. Since the end of Lebanon's 15-year civil war, Syria has allowed the group to continue its battle with Israel on the condition that Syria maintain military and political constraints on the group's operations. As a result, the group has been able to maintain its armed strength, despite the fact that competing Muslim and Christian factions in Lebanon were formally disarmed.

Sheik Nasrallah reiterated today Hezbollah's traditional stand that his group can never give up its arms "because Lebanon needs the resistance to defend it." But he offered a legalistic solution to opposition figures, reminding them to call Hezbollah a "resistance movement" instead of a militia, which would be bound by the call for disarmament in Resolution 1559.

Attempting to strike a conciliatory note, he said he agreed with the opposition's goals but took issue with its methods. The opposition's tacit support of the Security Council resolution, he said, served American and Israeli aims to "bring Lebanon back to a state of chaos and find excuses for foreign intervention and push some Lebanese to call for international intervention."

He railed against rumors that opposition figures had been in discussion with Israeli politicians, noting that even if Syria accepted peace with Israel, Hezbollah would not.

Hezbollah's plans for Tuesday's demonstration are a notable departure from its traditional outpourings, which bring hundreds of thousands of Shiite Lebanese into Beirut's southern suburbs. For the first time in Hezbollah's recent history, said Ms. Saad-Ghorayeb, the professor, the party has planned to hold the demonstration in central Beirut, not far from Martyr's Square where the opposition has held rallies in recent weeks. Ostensibly, the location will encourage Lebanese from other factions to join. But ultimately, she said, it would serve to contrast the opposition's tens of thousands of followers with Hezbollah's huge support base in the country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/i...6cnd-syria.html

[EbolaMonkey]

Hezbollah Declares Full Support for Syria



The more you read about Lebanon and Syria (and Iraq, for that matter), it seems like the East vs. West conflict is taking on a new dimension in the Middle East.

[Petronas]

Lebanon (Country threat level - 4): As previously announced, the Shiite Lebanese organization Hizballah organized a pro-Syrian demonstration in Beirut on 8 March 2005. An estimated 200,000 people assembled only a few blocks away from Martyrs' Square -- which has become a center for anti-Syrian demonstrations. Protesters chanted slogans against foreign interference and expressed gratitude for Syria's role in Lebanon. There was a heavy presence of Hizballah-affiliated gunmen in the area where the demonstration took place. There were no reports of violence or disturbances.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 3/8/2005

[Casey]

Massive protest marks Hariri death

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Beirut Monday for a massive opposition rally four weeks to the day since Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated.

Flag-waving crowds from across Lebanon flooded into Martyrs' Square in central Beirut, just meters (yards) from Hariri's grave.

They are demanding an international inquiry into his February 14 killing, the resignation of Lebanese security chiefs and a total Syrian withdrawal.

"This is a tremendously large crowd, the size of which is unprecendented in Lebanon's modern history," said CNN's Brent Sadler in Beirut. "It is truly massive and cannot be ignored."

Organizers are aiming to draw 1 million protesters, which would double the estimated 500,000 turnout for a massive pro-Syria demonstration organized by Hezbollah last week. Wire services estimated Monday's turnout at around 800,000.

Protesters waved banners demanding "Syria Out" and unfurled a 100-meter (yard) red-and-white Lebanese flag with the distinct green cedar tree in the middle.

Some sang the national anthem, while others chanted "Truth, Freedom, National Unity," or "We want only the Lebanese army in Lebanon," The Associated Press reported.

Crowds of men, women and children spilled into nearby streets, while more from across the country packed the roads into Beirut.

"We are coming to liberate our country. We are coming to demand the truth," Fatma Trad, a veiled Sunni Muslim woman who traveled from the remote region of Dinniyeh in northern Lebanon to take part, told AP.

"We are determined to liberate our country and we will not stop," Farid Samaha, a 32-year-old banker, said.

Many on Monday carried pictures of Hariri, and cars on street corners blared his speeches. "We miss you," read one large banner.

The crowd fell silent at 12:55 p.m. (1055 GMT), the exact time Hariri was killed four weeks ago. Churchs bells tolled in the silence.

The presence of 14,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon has stirred mass outrage after Hariri's assassination, which many Lebanese blame on the Damascus-backed government and Syria.

Syria has denied any involvement. It started to pull out some troops to eastern Lebanon last week because of intense pressure from opposition parties and world leaders for complete and immediate withdrawal.

On Sunday, a top U.N. envoy brought word from Damascus that Syria had given a timetable for the withdrawal of all troops and intelligence agents from Lebanon. (Full story (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/13/lebanon.rice/index.html))

While he could not give specifics on what he called the "historic" move, diplomat Terje Roed-Larsen said after meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad that he was heading back to U.N. headquarters in New York to report the details to Secretary General Kofi Annan.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday while she hadn't had a chance to talk to the diplomat, she saw "positive elements" coming out of his meeting with Assad.

Syrian officials say they are following U.N. Resolution 1559 as well as the 1989 Taif Accord that legitimized Syria's presence in Lebanon at the end of a bitter civil war there but called for a later withdrawal.

Assad is committed to fulfilling obligations in Resolution 1559 that call for withdrawing all foreign forces from Lebanon, Roed-Larsen added.

Syrian cabinet minister Bouthaina Shaaban told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" Sunday that the first stage will see all troops withdrawn to the border by the end of March and they could "probably" be in Syria before Lebanese elections in May.

"I think the troops will meet a very fast timetable," she said.

Other aspects of the resolution -- such as the existence of militias and the country's independence and political sovereignty -- are still being discussed.

But the crisis involving Lebanon and Syria isn't over. The international community and the key players "need to see deeds," and now there are simply hopeful "words," Roed-Larsen said.

Hariri's assassination four weeks ago also led to Prime Minister Omar Karami's resignation. But he was renominated as prime minister following last week's massive pro-Syria demonstration organized by Hezbollah.

Many Arabs see Hezbollah as heroic for helping drive Israeli forces from Lebanon. Israel pulled its troops from southern Lebanon in 2000.

Hezbollah has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against civilians and is listed by the United States and Israel as a terrorist organization. It remains an official party in Lebanon.

U.S. officials have called on both Lebanon and Syria to halt support for Hezbollah.

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, however, told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" Sunday that the United States believes "all elements in Lebanon have an opportunity through the elections to participate in the process that will result in a democratically elected government."

CNN Beirut Bureau Chief Brent Sadler contributed to this report


http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/14/lebanon.syria/index.html

[Petronas]

Iran out of Lebanon, too
Posted: March 11, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern

Did you see the reports on the massive pro-Syrian Hezbollah rallies in Lebanon? Many people were fooled by it. Those not familiar with Lebanese politics could easily conclude that Syria is really not all that unpopular in the country. After all, how could such large demonstrations in favor of Syrian occupation be accomplished if the Lebanese people were really united against their occupying neighbor?

The answer is simple: Many or most of those rallying in favor of Syria are not really Lebanese at all. The untold story of Lebanon's occupation is that Syrian troops represent only the most obvious part of it. For the most part, the Syrian troops wear uniforms – though thousands of intelligence agents, the most insidious and destructive force, do not.

But there is another occupying force in Lebanon today – tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of Iranians or Iranian-backed militiamen and civilians who have emigrated with the express purpose of using Lebanon as a base of operations and to establish an Iranian-style Shiite theocracy. This invasion has been going on for 20 years – slowly but surely changing the demographics of the country. There were always Shiites in Lebanon. But before the Iranian revolution, they were a peaceful people, easily assimilated into the country's diverse population of Sunnis, Druze and Christians.

All that changed when the Iranians came. They came with guns, ammunition, some 13,000 rockets and military advisers from Iran's Revolutionary Guards. They came with the purpose of using Lebanon as a base of terrorist operations against Israel. They came to stay.

The whole world is calling on Syria to leave Lebanon after 30 years, but Syrians are hardly the only threat to the peace and stability of a future free Lebanon. In the long term, the Iranians may represent a bigger threat.

It's not sufficient to recognize, as most do, that Hezbollah is backed by Iran. The truth is that Hezbollah is a creation of Iran. And even if Syrian troops and intelligence agents leave Lebanon, it will still be an occupied nation until Hezbollah is dismantled and the Iranians – all of them – go home. That pro-Syrian Hezbollah rally wasn't just a peaceful show of "popular support" for Damascus. It was a show of force. It was a threat. It was designed to intimidate the Lebanese people who can't trust their own Syrian-created army to protect them.

Even if the Syrians do leave lock, stock and barrel, they leave behind them a bigger, more well-armed contingent of Iranians. These Iranians already have plans. They are going to disrupt. They are going to intimidate. They are going to throw their weight around. They are going to establish their own rules. They are going to establish their own government. They are going to rule over any Lebanese people who get in their way. They are going to kill and main and kidnap. They are going to turn Lebanon into a seething cauldron of strife and mayhem.

Americans should be familiar with these people. They were the ones responsible for the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. servicemen. They were responsible for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight in which an American serviceman was brutally beaten, killed and dumped on the tarmac. They were responsible for the kidnapping and assassination of American citizens in Lebanon – people like newsman Terry Anderson and CIA chief William Buckley. It's not just in the interests of the Lebanese people to clean out that hornet's nest – it's in the interest of the free world.

Lebanon will never be free as long as the Iranians sponsor their own proxy army as an additional occupying force. I'm glad Hezbollah put on its little show of force this week. Don't be fooled by the waving of those Lebanese flags. They are not the flags normally waved by Iran's occupiers. Instead, when the international cameras are turned away, the Iranians in Lebanon fly a yellow-and-green flag depicting a fist brandishing a Kalashnikov, posed against a globe and advocating "an Islamic Revolution in Lebanon."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43244

[Casey]

Hezbollah rejects weapons call

(CNN) -- The head of militant Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah has said it will not give up its armed resistance, despite calls for it to join the mainstream political process in Lebanon.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah made the statement in an interview with Hezbollah's al-Manar television a day after U.S. President George W. Bush suggested the group disarm and move out of the way of efforts being made towards Middle East peace.

"I'm holding on to the weapons of the resistance because I think the resistance ... is the best formula to protect Lebanon and to deter any Israeli aggression," Nasrallah said, according to a Reuters news report.

Hezbollah's weapons would only be used against Israel and not internally in Lebanon, the Sheikh said.

"Hezbollah's arms will not be used domestically. Their only role is against Israel," he said.

Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, is an official political party in Lebanon and was the only militia left intact by the 1989 Taif accord, which ended Lebanon's 15-year civil war and authorized the presence of Syrian troops to help stabilize the war-torn country.

While reiterating his administration's condemnation of the group, Bush said he hoped Hezbollah would change.

"We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and I hope that Hezbollah would prove that they're not by laying down arms and not threatening peace," he said.

A senior administration official described the president's statements as a "softening of the language, not a shift in policy."

The official said Hezbollah would have to "disarm, renounce terror, and abandon any support for terrorism" if it wanted to "play a constructive role in Lebanon."

Only then, the official said, would the United States be willing to deal with Hezbollah as a legitimate political organization.

The call for Hezbollah to abandon its ways and join Lebanon's political mainstream was seen by some observers as an acknowledgment by the Bush administration that, even if Syrian forces withdraw and Lebanon had free elections, the immense support from the Lebanese and Syrians for Hezbollah means the group was there to stay, the official said.

The administration's strategy was to signal to the Lebanese people that it recognizes this reality, but make it clear that Hezbollah must change fundamentally, the official said.

"First things first," the official said. "Syria must get out and Lebanon must have unfettered elections, then Hezbollah must disarm. ... There is no place for an armed militia in a democratic society."

Hezbollah organized a huge, pro-Syria rally last week in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. (Full story (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/08/lebanon.syria/index.html))

The move followed weeks of demonstrations against Syrian troops in Lebanon after last month's assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Bush has called for Syrian troops to withdraw from Lebanon before the country's May elections, and a U.N. resolution also seeks those forces' immediate withdrawal.



http://images.clickability.com/pti/spacer.gif
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/16/hezbollah.resist/index.html

[Petronas]

Syria's Spies Evacuate Beirut, Ending 15-Year Reign of Terror
Beirut, Updated 16 Mar 05, 10:15

Syria has pulled all major spy centers from Beirut, ending a 15-year reign of terror and leaving the Lebanese capital to breath free from the watching Moukhabarat eyes and listening ears for the first time since the end of the civil war. The three principal intelligence compounds in Beirut's commercial thoroughfare of Hamra, the posh Ramlet el Baida seaside residential neighborhood and the mid-city Beau Rivage district have been vacated, the local media said Wednesday.

Furniture and personal affects of the officers manning the three centers were packed on Syrian army lorries which headed for the Beirut-Damascus highway en route for Syria. The last packed truck left the Beau Rivage before first light Wednesday, media reports said. A huge poster carrying portraits of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his father, the late Hafez Assad, were taken off an Iron frame spanning the Saeb Salam overpass in the Raouche district. A Bulldozer was seen knocking down two small buildings attached to the Beau Rivage complex.

Lebanese police cordoned off the three districts while the spy centers were being dismantled and contents trucked away. Groups of jubilant Beirutis clapped and cheered from a distance, waving Lebanese national flags. Lebanese troops took charge of the three vacated compounds. The Beirut evacuation came as the Syrian army completed 80% of the first stage of a withdrawal plan announced from the Syrian parliament by President Assad last week.

An Nahar said 4,000 troops have thus far been withdrawn from the central mountains above Beirut, of which 4,000 crossed the border into Syria proper and 2,000 fanned out in east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Between 6,000 and 7,000 Syrian soldiers have almost completely withdrawn from northern Lebanon into Syria, leaving behind some six intelligence compounds with small garrisons of troops guarding them in Tripoli and Akkar. The spy centers are expected to be withdrawn before the end of March, the deadline set for the first evacuation stage.

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&013FE76BA9FD000DC2256FC6002A5820

[Petronas]

Explosion rocks Beirut suburb
Updated Mar. 19, 2005 4:56

A car bomb wrecked the front of a building in northern Beirut early Saturday, wounding seven people, police said. It was not immediately clear what the bomb's target was, but it left a crater two meters deep and shattered windows for several blocks in the city's New Jedeideh neighborhood. Four fire engines and ambulances rushed to the scene, but there was no fire. A man rushed up screaming: "Where is my mother?" Soldiers told him that she was with the Red Cross. A police general at the scene confirmed it was a car bomb.

Witnesses said the car attempted to stop in front of a bingo saloon, but security guards asked its driver to move along. The driver then parked the car a short way down the road. Minutes later it exploded. The bomb blew off the first and second story facades of an adjacent building. It also damaged parked cars and shop shutters in the vicinity. The car containing the bomb was thrown across the street by the force of the explosion.

Lebanese television broadcast pictures of shaken residents standing in the street outside the damaged building. An elderly white-haired woman sat in a chair, looking dazed. The explosion came amid major political turmoil in Lebanon in the wake of the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian troops to east Lebanon and Syria.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1111116050120

[Trinity]

Lebanese president to stay home after bomb attack

BEIRUT - Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has decided to miss a conference on Monday after a bomb exploded in Beirut early Saturday.

Lahoud will not attend the Arab summit in Algeria on Monday, instead staying home to deal with the fears unleashed by the bomb.

The Lebanese army has also adopted tougher security measures against potential attacks.

Lahoud did not mention the bomb in a statement, saying he was going to stay home to continue facilitating the discussiosn between opposition and government groups on forming a new government.

The bomb injured nine people in the Christian suburb of New Jdeideh and wrecked an eight-story apartment building when it exploded shortly after midnight. No one has claimed responsibility.

Early Saturday, police were controlling access to the site as residents cleared up the rubble from damaged buildings nearby.

The explosion has revived fears that Lebanon will slip back into civil war once Syrian forces pull out.

"This has been the message to the Lebanese people for a while, to sow fear and terror among Lebanese citizens," Christian opposition member Pierre Gemayel told Al-Jazeera satellite television.

He said the message is "if there is a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, look what Lebanon will face."

Syria originally sent 14,000 soldiers to Lebanon years ago to help preserve calm in the war-torn country, which was wracked by a civil war from 1975 to 1990.

But many Lebanese resent the Syrian presence – although others welcome it – and under pressure from demonstrations and the U.S. and Europe, Syria has begun to pull back.

Many Christians have demonstrated against Syria, which has backed militant Muslim groups.

Lebanon has been in political turmoil since the Feb. 14 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Syria has denied accusations that it was behind the explosion that destroyed Hariri's motorcade, but the attack set off the demonstrations that have led to the current political crisis in the country.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/03/19/lebanon050319.html

[The 801]

All Hail Neil MacFarquhar.
This is a detailed explanation of the circumstances leading to the assassination of Hariri. Very good reporting, and a must read for IH denizens. Leaves little doubt as to who did it, without saying so. - 801


Behind Lebanon Upheaval, 2 Men's Fateful ClashBy NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Published: March 20, 2005


BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 19 - On an unseasonably mild day last August, a small group of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's closest political allies could tell from his flushed face and subdued manner that something awful had happened in the Syrian capital of Damascus, where he had been summoned to a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad.


The four men, all Lebanese Parliament members, recalled waiting for him at the Beirut mansion of the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, in the so-called garden, basically a carport paved with concrete bricks, plus one short orange tree in a faux terra cotta tub.

Mr. Hariri - wearing an expensive blue suit and a white shirt, his tie loosened - lumbered over mutely and flung himself onto one of a dozen white plastic chairs, his head lolling back and his arms dangling over the edges.

After a few moments, he leaned forward and described how the Syrian leader had threatened him, curtly ordering him to amend Lebanon's Constitution to give President Émile Lahoud, the man Syria used to block Mr. Hariri's every move, another three years in office.

"Bashar told him, 'Lahoud is me,' " Mr. Jumblatt recalled in an interview. "Bashar told Hariri: 'If you and Chirac want me out of Lebanon, I will break Lebanon.' " He was referring to the French president, Jacques Chirac.

In the month since Mr. Hariri was assassinated, members of Lebanon's anti-Syrian opposition have pointed to that Aug. 26 encounter in Damascus as fateful. Although opposition leaders acknowledge that they lack firm evidence tying Syria or its Lebanese agents directly to Mr. Hariri's assassination, they link that day to his slaying on Feb. 14.

"To tell you the truth, when I heard him telling us those words, I knew that it was his condemnation of death," Mr. Jumblatt said.

It was after that meeting that Mr. Hariri, 60, a real estate tycoon turned politician who had run Lebanon for the better part of 12 years, decided that he had to join the movement to uproot both the Syrian Army and the ever more robust tentacles of its secret police from Lebanon.

Interviews with a dozen Lebanese involved, including the three other men at the garden and some of Mr. Hariri's closest aides, indicate that in the final six months of his life he was tormented by the predicament that Lebanon now faces - how to end Syria's headlock without reigniting the civil war that tore this country apart a generation ago.

Whether Mr. Hariri would have succeeded in his efforts cannot be known. Nonetheless, President Assad's decision to force Mr. Lahoud onto Lebanon again is now widely seen as an enormous political blunder, uniting many Lebanese communities in opposition and even managing to bringing together France and the United States in a concerted effort to push Syria out. Although Syria denies involvement in the assassination, Mr. Hariri's death eliminated the one man potentially able to muster the international and domestic pressure to force Damascus to release its grip.

For the moment, his killing has inspired that anyway. But the lingering question is whether he can accomplish in death a goal that eluded him while alive: keeping the notoriously bickering opposition united for long enough to see free elections and the end of Syrian control.

"What they are really missing is a leader, that is the key problem, someone to show them the way," said Timur Goksel, a longtime United Nations spokesman here who now teaches at the American University of Beirut. "That is a real void."

Orders from Damascus

Syria is used to acting with impunity in Lebanon.

But by 2004, the Lebanese were expecting something different from Mr. Assad, not least because the United States had signaled by invading Iraq that business as usual was unacceptable.

The 39-year-old Syrian leader seemed to have gotten the message, telling a Kuwaiti newspaper early last summer that Damascus would not interfere in Lebanon's presidential election in the fall. Months later, Mr. Hariri was ordered to Damascus for the ominous meeting. Mr. Assad advertised the fact that the meeting was remarkably short - 15 minutes in a country where most presidential encounters drag on for hours - to make it clear that Syria was issuing an order.

The Lebanese around Mr. Hariri were both appalled and exhilarated that the Syrians obviously failed to grasp the consequences of what was immediately condemned as a maladroit act.

"We knew Bashar had made a fatal error," said a close political adviser to Mr. Hariri, who, like several other people interviewed, asked not to be identified given the current tension and fear of reprisals in Lebanon. "Hariri said that we are all just gnats to them, he kept repeating that until his death."

The Americans and the French, alienated since Paris opposed the war in Iraq, reacted with rare simultaneous anger over Syria's move. Quietly urged on by Mr. Hariri, they pushed through Security Council Resolution 1559, which demanded a Syrian withdrawal and the disarming of Hezbollah. The Syrians were furious at what they took to be solely Mr. Hariri's handiwork.


The strain showed. Mr. Hariri, a burly, gregarious man who loved to make puns, became quiet and introspective. A friend since childhood said that at one point the prime minister put his hand on the friend's shoulder and wept, something he'd never done before.

The Syrians, acknowledging that Mr. Hariri might be able to defuse the gathering international storm, asked the prime minister to form a new government. Mr. Hariri started drawing up lists of potential ministers, but most were rejected by Damascus.

"He was like a boxer still reeling from a direct punch," said Patrick B. Renaud, the Beirut ambassador for the European Union. "He was shocked by the harshness of the message he received from the Syrian president."

An even harsher message followed.

As Marwan Hamade, the former minister of economy and trade and a Hariri ally, drove away from his seaside apartment building on Oct. 1, a roadside bomb flung his Mercedes into the air. He clambered from the flaming wreckage and collapsed to the ground at the very moment the car's fuel tank exploded, sending shrapnel flying in all directions. Mr. Hamade managed to survive with head injuries, severe burns and a broken leg.

He was one of four cabinet ministers who had voted against the Lahoud extension and then quit the government. He was also among the 29 Parliament members who voted against the constitutional amendment granting Mr. Lahoud three more years. The failed assassination was seen as a warning.

The Hamade bombing convinced Mr. Jumblatt that open defiance of Syria was the only route left to restore democracy to Lebanon. He began organizing a series of opposition meetings at the Bristol Hotel in Beirut. Mr. Hariri did not attend, but several members of his Future Movement did. After his assassination, it was this core group that organized the huge street demonstrations that pressured Syria to start withdrawing its forces.

In the days after the Hamade bombing, Mr. Hariri changed his security routine somewhat. Bassem Sebah, a Shiite member of Parliament from Mr. Hariri's bloc, said he used to drive the two of them to meetings in a black BMW while sending his usual convoy of armored limousines out as decoys.

He was confident that he would not be assassinated, though, aides and political allies recalled, particularly because Washington had publicly rebuked Damascus after the Hamade bombing, warning that it would hold Syria responsible for any similar attacks.

Slowly throughout September and October, Mr. Hariri edged closer to the opposition. Aides said he could no longer stomach another three years battling Mr. Lahoud, whom he considered not only a lightweight but also a Syrian pawn who was undermining Lebanese institutions by backing the encroachment of secret police agencies that mirrored the ones running Syria.

As Mr. Hamade put it in a speech after the assassination, Mr. Hariri had been subverted because "the role of the intelligence was no longer to keep up security, but to plant agents, generalize wiretapping, distribute newspaper articles, threaten judges, bind ministers and besiege members of Parliament."

A President as Insurance

Among Lebanese, Mr. Lahoud, 68, has a reputation for lounging through most afternoons in his Speedos by the pool at the Yarze country club, reading Paris-Match magazine and holding a tanning mirror. News accounts that he was swimming during Mr. Hariri's funeral reached such a crescendo that he felt compelled to deny them. "I swim every day - it's my workout - but on that specific day, I did not swim," he told a gathering of the Journalists' Union Council.

Opposition figures are convinced that one key reason Mr. Lahoud was extended was that his family had developed close business ties with the Assad clan in Damascus.

Foreign embassies suspect the same. "We have no solid evidence, but we believe there is a big link," said a senior Western diplomat. "His family seems to have done quite well for itself."

Mr. Lahoud rejected a request to be interviewed for this article. Ever since he assumed the presidency in 1998, Mr. Lahoud proved Syria's main insurance for keeping Mr. Hariri in check.

Syria considered Mr. Hariri a threat both because he was a Sunni Muslim figure admired in both countries and because he had important friends in the West. Syria's minority Alawite rulers deposed the once dominant Sunnis there, so an obviously independent Sunni leader in Lebanon might inspire unrest next door.

In fact, one reason Mr. Hariri was always reluctant to confront Damascus was that his Sunni Muslim constituency still viewed Syria as its portal to the wider world of Arab causes, and they did not particularly want to be allied with the Maronites, their traditional rivals.


Mr. Lahoud ignored the fact that the prime minister was supposed to lead all cabinet meetings. At one October meeting, he sat down and announced that items 1 through 15 on Mr. Hariri's agenda would not be discussed, one former minister recalled, sweeping away every substantial item.

Over the years Mr. Lahoud and roughly 18 ministers allied with Syria voted against any project Mr. Hariri proposed, from small items like buying land for new schools to economic reforms. At a 2002 meeting of international donors in Paris, the French president and Mr. Hariri managed to secure more than $4 billion in aid to Lebanon, which was heavily in debt, in exchange for economic reforms. Mr. Lahoud effectively torpedoed all the reforms.

"Every cabinet meeting was an ordeal," Mr. Hamade said.

New Hope, and a Sudden End

The end for Mr. Hariri as prime minister came in October after the Syrians sent him a message to step aside. He resigned on Oct. 20, somewhat relieved, his aides said.

The next months were consumed mostly with planning for parliamentary elections due in the spring and wrangling over the election law. The Syrians were trying to gerrymander districts around Beirut and the rest of the country to weaken the opposition. But the Christian-Sunni Muslim-Druse coalition appeared to grow ever more formidable.

During this period, while he was planning his comeback, Mr. Hariri seemed to become his old self again, friends and allies said. Mr. Renaud, the European Union ambassador, recalls visiting him at his combined office and mansion right after Christmas and seeing him emerge from behind his desk waving a sheaf of papers and grinning, saying, "We are going to win the elections!"

To test his Future Movement's popularity, Mr. Hariri announced that to celebrate the Muslim feast of Al Adha, he would receive visitors at his Beirut mansion on Jan. 10. The reaction was huge. Some 20,000 well-wishers poured through, said Ghattas Khoury, a member of his parliamentary bloc.

By late January, Mr. Hariri was feeling confident enough that he decided he would not accept any Syrian-nominated members on his election list, his advisers say. His 19-member bloc in Parliament included three men chosen by Rustom Ghazale, the head of Syrian intelligence based in Anjar in the Bekaa region, and the man Lebanese believe really ran their country, his aides said.

Mr. Hariri invited Mr. Ghazale to lunch in late January and told him about the decision.

"They were not happy," said Ghazi Aridi, a former minister of information who resigned in September over the Lahoud extension. He recalls Mr. Ghazale telling Mr. Hariri, "You have to think about it and we have to think about it."

It was beginning to look like the opposition could capture about 60 seats in the 128-seat Parliament, enough to elect a president other than Mr. Lahoud. Around this time, Mr. Hariri and Mr. Jumblatt, the Druse leader, had a meeting. Mr. Hariri's earlier confidence that he would not be assassinated had slipped; the two men figured one or the other would be killed soon.

"Any field where you challenge them, they get mad," Mr. Jumblatt said. "Such totalitarian regimes cannot understand that you can have the freedom to chose your own M.P.'s, or you choose your own local administrators or I don't know what."

Two weeks after that conversation, the huge bomb that rocked all of Beirut struck Mr. Hariri's motorcade. He, along with 18 other people, died.

"The goal of killing him was killing the political movement that could succeed in controlling Lebanon, particularly since it looked like the Syrians would have to leave," said Mr. Sebah, a member of Parliament from Mr. Hariri's bloc. "I think they killed him because they did not want a new political era in Lebanon."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/international/middleeast/20lebanon.html?pagewanted=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1111334428-5z33PY/ST2FQeo16urPfxg

[Petronas]

Shopping mall blast near Beirut kills three
March 22, 2005 Posted: 9:12 PM EST (0212 GMT)

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- A bomb ripped through a shopping mall in a predominantly Christian area north of Beirut, Lebanon, early Wednesday, killing three people and wounding at least two others, police said. It was the third bombing in six weeks in Lebanon, which has been tumultuous since a bombing killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri last month.

Video from the scene of Wednesday's blast showed the mall heavily damaged -- with glass, concrete and other debris strewn inside the shopping center and throughout the nearby street. Police cordoned off the area, and an investigation is under way. There has been no claim of responsibility.

Police said the three people killed were security personnel at the mall, located about 12 miles north of Beirut. The bombing comes on the heels of a similar blast just four days ago, when a car bomb exploded in another Christian area, sheering off part of a multistory office building. Nobody was killed, but it raised concerns about more violence in the volatile Lebanese capital. No suspects have been arrested or identified in that blast or in the bombing that killed Hariri.

Hariri's assassination has resulted in massive demonstrations against Syria's troop presence in Lebanon and the resignation of Prime Minister Omar Karami's government. Karami stepped down February 28 under intense pressure following Hariri's killing. But he was reappointed by parliament to bring together both opposition and loyalist politicians in a Cabinet to lead Lebanon to general elections scheduled for May.

Hariri was the chief opposition figure in Lebanon who spearheaded the push for Syrian troops and intelligence officers to leave Lebanon. That movement culminated in the largest demonstration in the nation's history last week, with an estimated 500,000 to 1 million people cramming the streets, chanting, "Get out Syria!" The demonstration came one month to the day after Hariri's assassination.

Syria began pulling its 14,000 troops to the Bekaa Valley near the border March 8, and vowed to bring all the troops and intelligence officials across the border into Syria later on. After Saturday's bombing, pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud urged Lebanon's divided politicians to begin immediate talks.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/22/beirut.explosion/index.html

[Trinity]

Lebanese Opposition Blames Syria for Beirut Bombing
By VOA News
27 March 2005

Tension is running high in Lebanon after a bomb blast that injured at least six people in a Christian suburb of Beirut late Saturday. Opposition leaders have blamed Syria for the blast - the third to hit a Christian neighborhood over the past eight days.

Lawmaker Walid Jumblatt says Lebanon's Syrian-backed security forces are trying to destabilize the country as Damascus withdraws its forces.

Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, leader of Lebanon's Maronite Christians, told worshippers Sunday that the country faces a choice between sovereignty and more turmoil.

Talking to reporters after the Easter Sunday mass, Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud called on the country's people to be united.

The U.S. State Department has condemned the bombings in Beirut, saying authorities must arrest those responsible.

It also repeated the the U.S. call for Syrian forces to leave Lebanon immediately.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-03-27-voa21.cfm

[Petronas]

Syria Reported Setting New Secret Service Network Outside Beirut
Beirut, Updated 31 Mar 05, 15:34

Syria is setting up a secret intelligence operation outside Beirut and is working through its allies in Lebanon to maintain its influence over the country even after it withdraws its troops as demanded by the U.N., The Washington Post said Thursday.
In defiance of U.N. resolution 1559, Damascus is bringing in officials who will not be recognized to staff its hidden presence in Beirut's suburbs, even as it closes its intelligence headquarters in the central part of the city, U.S., European, U.N. officials and the opposition told the daily.

"What we're trying to do is put as much pressure on Damascus to make clear that any use of the assets it has in Lebanon, residually or otherwise, will not be tolerated -- and to the degree anything bad happens, Syria will be held responsible," said a senior U.S. official involved in Lebanon policy.

Removing all Syrian influence from Lebanon, however, will be more difficult than presumed, since it has mostly been exerted by filling Lebanese institutions with pro-Syrian loyalists, other observers said.

"Syrian influence has permeated most facets of economic, political and social life here with even senior civil positions having to be cleared from Damascus ... Now that the Syrians are withdrawing, to expect that intimate relationship to wither away would be plain naiveté," said Timur Goksel, a long-serving former U.N. adviser in Lebanon now teaching at the American University of Beirut.

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&F78592FA618F077FC2256FD50048BDB3

[Petronas]

Lebanon (Country threat level - 4): On 1 April 2005, at approximately 2145 local time (1845 UTC), a bomb exploded in the underground parking lot of the Rizk Plaza commercial center in Broummana, a mountain resort village located approximately 13 mi/20 km east of Beirut. The blast wounded at least five people and caused material damage.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 4/4/2005

[Atlas]

I'm interested to see how many news junkies think Syria is really going to bail from the Levant? If I were in their position I'd be setting up redundant organizations with surrogates such as hizb allah splinters to keep the flame.

[Casey]

Saturday, April 09, 2005Alleged Hariri assassin's sibling says father was killedAbu Adas seeks protection for his familyBy Nada Bakri
Daily Star staff




BEIRUT: Khaled Abu Adas, the brother of the alleged assassin of former Premier Rafik Hariri insists his father did not die of natural causes and said his mother is being interrogated again.

After seeing footage of their son Ahmed claiming responsibility for the assassination of Hariri on behalf of the group "Nasra and Jihad in Greater Syria" Adas' parents surrendered themselves to Lebanese authorities. Adas' father died upon his release from custody, 10 days later.

Speaking on the telephone to local newspapers from his residence in Germany, Adas, 32, described the treatment his parents received during their detention as "at the least inhuman."

Adas said: "I spoke with [my father] on the phone shortly after he was released and he sounded as if he were on the verge of death. He died later that day. He never had any health problems, but I cannot say yet whether he was poisoned or killed."

Adas added that once the investigation results are revealed concerning his father's death, he will demand that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) conduct its own investigation and search for his brother's body in case he may also be dead.

Investigations show that Adas' brother Ahmed left his home in the Arab University District of Beirut on January 16 and was officially reported missing on January 19.

Having already informed the ICRC and a human rights organization about his suspicions regarding his father's death, Adas requested the organization guarantee the safety of his mother and two sisters.

He said: "My family is being constantly harassed and abused by the Lebanese forces. They are being watched and followed in all their moves and interrogated frequently."

With regards to his brother, Adas insisted that Ahmed was not a terrorist. He denied any ties Ahmed may have had with extreme Islamist groups, such as Salafi, or the so-called terrorist organizations based in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

Salafi, which means "following the forefathers of Islam," is a branch of Islam often referred to as Wahhabi.

Adas did not accuse anyone of kidnapping his brother and said the February 14 bombing, which killed former Premier Hariri and 19 others, could only have been executed by "a senior security forces agency, which cunningly dragged his brother into its plot."

He said: "Ahmed rarely visited the camps and never frequented the internet cafes from where Lebanese authorities said he cyber-contacted the terrorist and Salafi groups. He met Mohammed - who has supposedly kidnapped Ahmed - a month before he disappeared as he promised to recruit him." In its report filed to Secretary General Kofi Annan, the United Nations fact finding team states, "enquiries carried out by the mission established that approximately three years ago Ahmed Abu Adas changed from being a carefree teenager to becoming a religious fundamentalist."


http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=14153#

[Petronas]

Lebanon (Country threat level - 4): Reports on 20 April 2005 indicate that an explosive device, reportedly a stun grenade, detonated in a side-street cafe, wounding three people, including two Syrian nationals. The device was thrown from a car into the cafe, located in the low-income Muslim neighborhood of Cola, at approximately 2130 local time (1630 UTC). In a separate incident two hours later, a dynamite stick was thrown into an empty lot in the south Beirut neighborhood of Maamoura, causing no damage or injuries.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 4/21/2005

[Trinity]

Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon almost done: sources

Last Updated Sat, 23 Apr 2005 22:18:58 EDT
CBC News

BAALBEK, LEBANON - Syria will pull its last troops from Lebanon on Sunday after a 29-year presence in the country, news reports say.

Several news agencies, including the Associated Press and Reuters, said Saturday that senior Lebanese military officers told them Damascus accelerated the withdrawal.

The sources asked to remain anonymous, as is usual when Syrian military officers speak to the media.

Hundreds of tanks and military trucks, full of soldiers and equipment such as cannons and rockets, passed through the Masnaa border crossing into Syria on Saturday.

Similar convoys were spotted leaving at another border.

By Saturday night, Syrian soldiers and intelligence forces had completely pulled out of the eastern city of Baalbek, a stronghold of the pro-Syrian Shia Muslim militant group Hezbollah.

They also vacated a number of positions in the surrounding Bekaa Valley.

The assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14 increased international demands that Damascus end its military domination in the neighbouring country.

Syria had promised to withdraw by April 30.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/04/23/lebanon-050423.html

[1001]

Blast rocks Lebanon port city


Friday 06 May 2005, 22:19 Makka Time, 19:19 GMT *

An explosion has rocked the port city of Jounieh in the Christian heartland of Lebanon, TV stations and witnesses reported.

Six people were reportedly wounded.

Witnesses in Jounieh, 15km (10 miles) north of Beirut, said the explosion occurred near the main square of the picturesque town. The nature of the explosion and its target were not immediately clear.

The explosion was heard in the hills overlooking the coast shortly after 9 pm (1800 GMT).

The explosion was reported by LBC television, whose studios are several kilometers north of the city, and Future TV, a private station.

Both stations quoted security sources as saying six people were wounded.

Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D1C28CDA-90C9-4A14-96FF-FBA6F5EC500C.htm

[Petronas]

'Syria out to kill Beirut politicians'
June 11, 2005

THE US says it has "credible information" that Syrian operatives plan to assassinate senior Lebanese political leaders. It also believes that Syrian intelligence forces are returning to Lebanon, just six weeks after Damascus said it had ended almost three decades of military occupation of its neighbour. The advice had come from "a variety of Lebanese sources" and was assessed as credible in Washington, a Bush administration official told US newspapers.

The information was gathered after the assassinations of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in February and of Samir Kassir, a well-known Lebanese journalist, a week ago, The New York Times reported. Both were outspoken critics of Syrian domination of Lebanese politics, and Mr Kassir had blamed Damascus for Mr Hariri's killing.

"This is a moment when many politicians are facing overt Syrian intimidation in the middle of the election period," the Bush official said, referring to parliamentary elections held last month and today. "These are threats against some of the most prominent Lebanese political leaders. The purpose would be to create instability and to create internal strife," the official told The Washington Post. After a brief lull in interference in Lebanon, senior Syrian intelligence personnel have been seen back in the country, particularly over the past week, the official said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US was concerned about a potential "pattern" of political killings. "What we don't want is that there is a pattern now of assassination of key figures because that would be very, very destabilising in Lebanon and I think it would have to point a finger at those forces that have been destabilising in Lebanon," she said on US television.

Lebanese opposition leader Walid Jumblatt has also expressed concern about the potential for future assassinations. "Probably there is a decision -- with the knowledge or without the knowledge of (Syrian) President (Bashar) Assad -- to continue the assassinations," he said. The Washington Post said the Bush administration was also worried about the return of Syrian intelligence personnel because Lebanon was halfway through its four-phased general election campaign.

Syria has dominated Beirut's governments since shortly after it first deployed troops there in 1976, initially under an Arab League mandate to try to quell Lebanon's civil war. Although Syrian troops have pulled out under the terms of a UN resolution, Dr Rice said the US had doubts about the withdrawal of its intelligence agents.

The unnamed Bush official said a "variety of credible Lebanese sources" had said Damascus had developed a "hit list" of senior Lebanese political leaders, and that the sources had reported seeing "familiar figures" from Syrian intelligence back in their country. "There are efforts by Syrians to put back in place the system of intimidation," he said.

It was clear the senior official's statements, which were offered to reporters from at least two news organisations, were a deliberate signal of the Bush administration's continuing displeasure with the Syrian Government's role in Lebanon, The New York Times said. The official said information about the threat had been given to Middle Eastern and European governments and that "we thought it would be useful to make this public as a deterrent to the Syrians".

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced recently that he was sending his special envoy to Lebanon, Terje Roed-Larsen, back to the region next week. Mr Annan said yesterday that the UN was also receiving reports "there may be elements" of Syrian forces still in Lebanon and indicated he may send a UN team to verify the supposed withdrawal.

Syria's return would be a major violation of UN resolution 1559, co-sponsored by the US and France, which demanded a total Syrian withdrawal. US and UN officials estimated that Damascus had about 14,000 troops and 5000 intelligence officials. Syria claimed the last troops pulled out on April 28.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15576938%255E601,00.html

[Petronas]

Anti-Syrian Critic Killed in Lebanon Blast
June 21, 2005 3:01 PM EDT

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A bomb killed an anti-Syrian politician Tuesday in the second such assassination in three weeks. The United States condemned it as an attack on Lebanon's quest to break free of Syrian domination. Former Communist Party leader George Hawi was killed by an explosion under his seat as he was being driven through west Beirut.

The blast came a day after official results of parliamentary elections were announced, showing the anti-Syrian opposition had won a majority in parliament. The elections further loosened Syria's grip on its neighbor after its army ended a 29-year military presence in Lebanon in April. But the killing fueled fears that Damascus and its Lebanese allies are striking at enemies in a bid to revive their waning authority.

Hawi, a 67-year-old Greek Orthodox Christian, was once a strong Syria ally, but in recent years he often spoke out against Syrian interference in Lebanese affairs. In Lebanon, opposition figures quickly blamed Syrian agents and their allies in the Lebanese security services for the assassination as they did for the June 2 slaying of anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir and the Feb. 14 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The Bush administration stopped just short of blaming Syria. "These are not random killings. These are targeted assassinations of political figures," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "Syria's long and continued presence inside Lebanon has created an environment of intimidation and political repression."

In Brussels, Belgium, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "I do not know who was responsible for this and I don't want to say that I know who was responsible, because I don't. But there is a context and an atmosphere of instability. Syria's activities are a part of that context and that atmosphere and they need to knock it off." And Rice said there is "uncertainty about Syrian activities in Lebanon," despite Syrian claims that it pulled the last of its troops and intelligence forces out of the country in April.

More than 1,000 Hawi supporters gathered at the bomb site on Tuesday night, holding candles and white sheets of paper with the words: "Syria: who's next?" Anti-Syrian politicians have said Syria has drawn up a hit list of its enemies in Lebanon. Syria has denied such reports, and it condemned Hawi's killing. "This shows that the series of assassinations is continuing and the (Syrian-backed) security agencies are still at work," said Samir Franjieh, an anti-Syrian politician. During its time in Lebanon, Syria filled the country's security and intelligence agencies with its allies. Although Syria has withdrawn its troops, and some Lebanese security chiefs have been replaced, many pro-Syrians remain in influential positions in the security apparatus.

Walid Jumblatt, one of the leaders of the anti-Syrian coalition, implicitly accused Lebanon's pro-Syrian president and security agencies in Hawi's death. He said the agencies must be "completely purged." Another opposition leader, Saad Hariri, son of the slain former premier, said the bombing was "part of a series of assassinations targeting leading national personalities in Lebanon." President Emile Lahoud condemned the killing and distanced himself from the security services, saying he is not directly responsible for them as the opposition has claimed.

The attack Tuesday bore similarities to the one that killed Kassir in Beirut nearly three weeks ago: both devices were placed in cars, and both were detonated by remote control. The bomb that kill Hawi was made of less than two pounds of plastic explosive placed under the front passenger seat of his car. After the bomb was detonated, the car zigzagged for about 50 yards before coming to a halt in the road. A worker at a nearby car dealership said he heard the blast and ran to the car. Hawi's driver, slightly wounded, went around to the passenger door and the two men tried to lift Hawi out. "Hawi was still alive and told the two of us, 'Help me, help me.' His face was bloodied, his abdomen was badly injured. Then he died," the worker said, refusing to be named for fear of trouble with the security services. Hawi's stepson, Rafi Madoyan, blamed "the security system which is in power." Speaking through tears, he warned that everyone in the opposition was a potential target.

The bombing came as U.N. investigators questioned the pro-Syrian head of Lebanon's Presidential Guards about Hariri's assassination. Brig. Gen. Mustafa Hamdan is one of several pro-Syrian security chiefs accused by the opposition of involvement, or at least a cover-up, in Hariri's death. After a meeting Tuesday evening, the opposition called for the U.N. Security Council to expand the mandate of the U.N. team investigating Hariri's assassination to include the killings of Kassir and Hawi. Opposition leaders called for "the highest possible turnout" for Hawi's funeral Friday, and a general strike that day.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/int?guid=20050621/42b790c0_3421_13345200506211901560370

[NoFate]

Explosion hits Lebanese capital

A powerful blast has rocked an eastern suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, killing one person and injuring at least 22 more.

The explosion happened in the Ashrafiya area, a part of the city that has a large Christian population.

Two cars were blown up and a nearby building was damaged several floors above the ground, TV pictures showed.

Beirut has experienced a wave of blasts this year, including one that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Earlier this week, a UN investigator looking into Hariri's killing on 14 February visited Lebanon's neighbour, Syria, to prepare interviews with local officials.

Syria under pressure

The latest blast took place just before midnight (2100 GMT) near a branch of the Byblos Bank, and was heard several kilometres away, witnesses said.

Lebanese soldiers sealed off the scene as bloody victims were ferried to hospitals in ambulances.

A correspondent for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation said the bomb killed a coffee shop owner and wounded several customers, but the report was not confirmed.

Anti-Syrian activists blamed Damascus for the attack. They also blame Syria for the death of Hariri and other bombings - accusations that Syria strongly denies.

"This is a criminal act that comes as part of a series of other criminal acts that Lebanon witnessed," MP Atef Majdalani told the Associated Press.

"The remains of the Syrian and Lebanese security regime are still present and they are behind this act."

Arrests

Several political figures and members of the public have been killed in bombings in recent months.

In June, two prominent anti-Syrian figures were killed in separate bombs.

In July, Elias Murr, defence minister in both the outgoing pro-Syrian cabinet and the incoming pro-Syrian one, was wounded in a bomb blast.

Street protests and international pressure following Hariri's death led Syria to withdraw thousands of troops it had stationed in Lebanon as part of a deal ending years of civil war.

Elections held after the withdrawal delivered victory to a coalition headed by Hariri's son, Saad, who had campaigned for an end to Syria's influence in Lebanon.

A UN investigation into Hariri's assassination has accused four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals of involvement. They have all been arrested by Lebanon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4254828.stm

[Petronas]

Lebanon detains cleric over attacks
Nov 14, 2005 — BEIRUT (Reuters)

Lebanon detained on Monday a Lebanese Muslim cleric accused of carrying out acts of terrorism on the orders of a Syrian intelligence officer, a judicial source said. The source said the Syrian officer had ordered Sheikh Hassan Mazloum to carry out bomb attacks and shootings in Lebanon, but did not give details on the attacks. Lebanon detained six men on the same charges last week and the source said other suspects were still on the run.

A string of bombings and assassinations has rocked Lebanon since the February killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, fuelling fears the country was sliding into chaos. Syria ended its three-decade military presence in Lebanon in April, bowing to world pressure and mass protests over Hariri's killing. Many Lebanese blame Hariri's murder on Damascus and fear it is also behind other attacks. Syria denies any role. Syria's intelligence agencies were key enforcers of Damascus's grip on Lebanese politics and security from the days of the 1975-1990 civil war. Military magistrate Rasheed Mizher issued the arrest warrant after questioning Mazloum, the source said

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1309905

[Vancouver]

One of those stories that won't appear on al-Jazeera. From Boston Globe:

BEIRUT, Lebanon --Troops exhumed the remains of 25 bodies from a mass grave near a former Syrian military base in eastern Lebanon on Saturday.

An official said another 12 bodies -- most believed to be Lebanese soldiers -- were recently removed from a grave near Beirut for DNA testing.

The identities of the bodies were not immediately known, but one security official said some appeared to be Lebanese soldiers killed in an October 1990 Syrian military offensive that defeated Christian-commanded army units of then-interim Lebanese Prime Minister Michel Aoun.

Residents of the eastern Bekaa Valley town of Anjar, near the former headquarters of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, found the grave containing the 25 bodies last week, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was unauthorized to speak to the media. At least one of the bodies was dressed in a Lebanese soldier's uniform.

Syria vacated the headquarters -- notorious for the arrest and torture of prisoners -- April 25 as it withdrew its soldiers from Lebanon, ending its 29-year domination of its neighbor.
[snip]

[Petronas]

Jumblat Urges Assad's Overthrow, Asserting Syria Won't be New Iraq if Regime Crumbles
Beirut, Updated 02 Dec 05, 16:11

Druze leader Walid Jumblat said Friday that relations with Syria have "reached a point of no return," citing steadily rising tensions since the February assassination of ex-premier Rafik Hariri. "Relations have reached a point of no return, because we cannot get along with this regime (Damascus) before knowing the truth about the assassination of Rafik Hariri," Jumblat told the Lebanese weekly magazine Al Shiraa.

"The current (Syrian) regime has closed every door on reconciliation," said Jumblat. He added that he nevertheless believed that "parties and men capable of offering the country a new horizon" still existed in Syria.

The tone of Jumblat suggests he is encouraging Syrians to overthrow the Assad regime. "There won't be a Salafi organization or any fanatic Islamic group that would turn Syria into a new Iraq if the regime falls," he said.(AFP-Naharnet)

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&6CAB7C26BCAEF1EAC22570CB004CD92E

[Petronas]

News Flash

A bomb ripped through a car near the house of key Hizbullah figure Sheikh Mohammed Yazbeck in east Lebanon’s city of Baalbeck Friday night, witnesses said. The Party of God’s Al-Manar TV station said an ‘explosion’ went off near Sheikh Yazbeck’s house, but no casualties were reported.

more details soon...

http://web.naharnet.com/

[Petronas]

Explosives Found on Main Chouf Road Raising Fears for Jumblat's Life
Beirut, Updated 11 Dec 05, 12:03

Roadside explosives have been recovered from a mountain road that leads to Walid Jumblat's palace in Moukhtara – a stark reminder that the maverick Druze leader remains a potential target of political assassination. The device, which was found Saturday, consisted of four anti-tank rockets – three made in the United States and one in Russia. They were attached to wires readied for connection to a detonator, An Nahar reported Sunday. The newspaper said the explosives sent a clear message to Jumblat that he is not "beyond reach."

The parcel was placed in an open rainwater drain on the side of the road in Doumit, paradoxically only a few kilometers from Deir Dourit, site of the assassination of Jumblat's father, Kamal, in March 1977. The explosives were discovered by a laborer riding in the back of an open truck. He noticed a suspicious object and reported it to a nearby police station.

Beirut newspapers said the rockets must have been placed in the early hours of the morning, because security forces had thoroughly inspected the area in an overnight sweep in anticipation of a Jumblat trip from Moukhtara to Beirut. Jumblat has warned of potential security jolts in Lebanon as the international investigation into the murder of Rafik Hariri shifts its focus to possible Syrian suspects.

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&3245518A558CD090C22570D4002894F3

[Petronas]

This is an enormous tragedy, on the same level of importance as Rafik Hariri's assassination earlier this year. An-Nahar is one of the best sources for news from the Middle East. I have read many of Gebran Tueni's articles. The family is very influential in Lebanon - I believe that his father, Ghasan Tueni, also was Lebanese ambassador to the UN. Eliminating his heir and successor is a great blow for the Christian community in Lebanon.

Gebran Tueni Perishes in Massive Car Bomb Explosion Near Beirut
Beirut, Updated 12 Dec 05, 18:54

Gebran Tueni, a fiery critic of Syria, was assassinated in a car-bomb explosion in Mkalles, east of Beirut Monday. He was 48.
Tueni was An Nahar's general manager and Beirut legislator. "God have mercy on Gebran and An-Nahar will remain the beacon for freedom," Druze leader Walid Jumblat told LBCI.

A parked car packed with an estimated 100 kilograms of TNT exploded at 9 am as Tueni's motorcade passed in the hilly industrial suburb of Mkalles, flinging his armor-plated vehicle and several other cars into a ravine. Tueni, his driver and a passer-by were killed. Another 30 people were wounded in the bombing, which shattered nearby store windows and started a fire that destroyed at least 10 vehicles

"This is a new terrorism message," Jumblat said of the killing, which follows a series of subsequent bombings that have targeted mainly anti-Syrian officials in the past year. At the scene Tueni's wife was in tears and refused to answer when asked by a reporter whether her husband was hurt.

Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh, who is also Gebran's uncle, threatened to resign if the cabinet did not meet by Monday evening "to demand an inquiry under the supervision of the Security Council on all the crimes committed by Syria." Hamadeh was also targeted on October 1, 2004 in a failed assassination attempt. Speaker Berri described him as a "voice that shouted in the wilderness of a nation against oppression."

An outspoken critic of Syria's role in Lebanon, Tueni had just returned from France where he had been living for fear of assassination. His columns in An-Nahar often raised the ire of the Syrians. After ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination, Tueni played a prominent role in the leadership of the mass demonstrations that, combined with international pressure, succeeded in forcing Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in April, ending a 29-year hegemony. He was elected to parliament for the first time in the last elections in June.

Tueni's grandfather, Gebran Tueni, founded An-Nahar. His father Ghassan Tueni is considered the dean of the Lebanese press, having turned the newspaper into one of the leading media institutions in the Arab world.

In his final days, Tueni was campaigning for an international probe into recently discovered mass graves near the Defense Ministry in Yarze and Anjar which he blamed on the Syrians. In his last editorial published Dec. 8, Tueni accused Syria of committing "crimes against humanity" in Lebanon. He charged the Syrian leadership with "trying to turn the clock back" and to intimidate the Lebanese.

He is survived by his wife, Siham Asseily and his four daughters Nayla, Michelle, from a previous marriage, and twin infants Gabriella and Nadia.

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&0657B289C8E3E83DC22570D5003C2FF9

[NYer]

UN identifies Six Syrian Suspects (http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a194596a-6b69-11da-8aee-0000779e2340.html)

[NYer]

Wally calls for Regime Change In Syria (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=20745)

[Petronas]

LEBANON: 3 ARRESTED IN CONNECTION TO TUENI KILLING
Dec-16-05 14:52

Authorities in Lebanon have arrested three people in connection with the murder of prominent anti-Syrian politician and publisher Gibran Tueni. According to judicial sources the three are being questioned in regard to their relations with the owner of the Renault car believed to have been used to conceal the bomb that kiiled Tueni and two others in Monday's attack.

The car was apparently imported from Germany into Lebanon through the port of Tripoli, but no documents have been found regarding the vehicle's ownership. Investigators led by Beirut prosecutor Rashid Mezher believe Tueni who arrived in Lebanon from France during the weekend was monitored by his assailants from early Monday morning. Eye witnesses identified two cars - one used to inspect the site of the attack, while the other packed with explosives was parked along the road and detonated when Tueni drove past.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.240837424&par=0

[Petronas]

Lebanon (Country threat level - 4): According to reports emerging on 29 December 2005, the Lebanese government has doubled the presence of security personnel throughout the country -- ahead of New Year's celebrations -- following terrorist threats and a series of bomb attacks in the course of 2005, which began with the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on 14 February. Authorities have set up temporary checkpoints throughout Beirut. Night and day patrols have been increased from 8 to 25, with more than 300 officers patrolling at night. In addition, five security officers are posted at the entrance of every mall. The army has also posted troops at the entrances of several towns and in public places throughout the country. Many entertainment and shopping centers have been deserted in the run-up to the New Year celebrations, and this has had a devastating impact on the local economy.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 12/29/2005

[Casey]

Iraq al Qaeda claims missile attack on Israel-Web
29 Dec 2005 18:25:26 GMT

Source: Reuters

(Adds Israeli security source, paragraphs 2, 7-8)

DUBAI, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Al Qaeda in Iraq said it had launched missiles at Israel from Lebanon as part of a "new attack" on the Jewish state, a statement posted on the Web said on Thursday.

It appeared to be the first claim of responsibility from al Qaeda for an attack on Israel from Lebanon. A senior Israeli security source questioned the claim.

"The lion sons of al Qaeda launched ... a new attack on the Jewish state by launching 10 missiles ... from the Muslims' lands in Lebanon on selected targets in the north of the Jewish state," said the statement, attributed to al Qaeda and posted on an Islamist Web site.

The statement could not be authenticated, but was posted on a main Web site frequently used by Iraqi insurgent groups. It did not give the date of the attack.

It was not immediately clear if the group was referring to a rocket strike which wounded three people in an Israeli border town late on Tuesday, or some other attack.

Israeli warplanes attacked a Palestinian guerrilla group's training camp in Lebanon in response to that rocket attack.

The Israeli security source said: "For this to be true, it would mean that al Qaeda, a virulently anti-Shi'ite group, has penetrated the heartland of Hizbollah, a virulent Shi'ite group, on such a scale that it can mount a rocket salvo independently.

"This claim should be regarded with extreme scepticism."

The statement said: "This auspicious attack was a response by the mujahideen (holy fighters) to the oath by the mujahid sheikh Osama bin Laden, leader of al Qaeda ... which the (Jews) and idolaters' servants in Muslim countries failed to grasp. The future shall be more bitter and more harsh."

In August, Iraq's al Qaeda said it was behind a failed rocket attack on U.S. Navy ships in Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29168347.htm

[Casey]

Blast near Lebanese army post after al Qaeda warning

Date: Feb 01, 2006 - 11:02 PM
Reuters

BEIRUT - A bomb exploded near a Lebanese army barracks in Beirut early on Thursday, destroying a car and slightly wounding one soldier, security sources said.

The sources said a local newspaper had received a telephone call from someone claiming to speak on behalf of al Qaeda and declaring that a security target would be bombed in Beirut in retaliation for the arrest last month of 13 group members.

The explosion occurred some three hours later at around 2 a.m. (7 p.m. EST) outside the Fakhreddine Barracks in Ramlet al-Baida district of the capital, shattering windows in nearby buildings.

The sources earlier said the blast was caused by a car bomb but they later said it had been caused by an explosive charge near or under the car.

Lebanon has been rocked by more than a dozen explosions in the past 12 months, the largest of which was a truck bomb that killed former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and 22 others in Beirut on February 14.

A U.N. inquiry has implicated senior Syrian security officials and their Lebanese allies in the murder. Three anti-Syrian politicians and journalists have been killed and two wounded since in separate smaller explosions.

The Lebanese authorities last month said they arrested 13 members of al Qaeda and sources say they had been setting up a network for the group in the country.

The group had been believed to have recruited Lebanese and Palestinian refugees to fight U.S.-led forces in Iraq under the leadership of Abu Moussab al-Zarqawi, the sources said. But in recent months there have been indications that the group was stepping up its activities in Lebanon.

Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for a Katyusha rocket attack against northern Israel from south Lebanon in late December. But though Lebanese security sources believe pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrillas were behind that attack, they say Zarqawi's willingness to take credit for it showed he might have an agenda in Lebanon.

Copyright 2006 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

http://abcnews.go.com/International/print?id=1567695

[Petronas]

Protesters Torch Danish Embassy in Beirut
Sun Feb 5, 7:11 AM ET

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Muslims protesting caricatures of Islam's prophet set fire Sunday to a building housing the Danish Embassy in Lebanon as security forces fired tear gas in an attempt to stop the protesters. Thousands of protesters took part in the protest but only a small group of Islamic extremists tried to break the security barrier, prompting troops to fire tear gas and water cannons to disperse them, said the official.

Troops also fired bullets into the air and over the protesters' heads. Demonstrators attacked policemen with stones and set fire to several fire engines, witnesses said. Black smoke was seen billowing from the area. They also burned Danish flags. Security officials said at least 18 people were injured, including policemen, fire fighters and protesters. Witnesses saw at least 10 people taken away by ambulance.

A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media, said embassy staff had evacuated the building two days ago in anticipation of protests. Some 2,000 army troops and riot police were deployed around the building.

The Danish Foreign Ministry urged Danes to leave Lebanon as soon as possible. The violence in Lebanon came a day after thousands of protesters in neighboring Syria set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies in the most violent of furious demonstrations by Muslims in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Twelve caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad first published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September and reprinted in European media in the past week. One depicted the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the pictures because the media was practicing self-censorship when it came to Muslim issues. The drawings have touched a raw nerve in part because Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

Lebanese Grand Mufti Mohammed Rashid Kabbani denounced the violence, saying there were infiltrators among the protesters trying to "harm the stability of Lebanon." Speaking on Future TV, he appealed for calm and said there were some who were trying to exploit the protests to cause trouble and "distort the image of Islam." Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Saniora also urged calm. "Those who are committing these acts have nothing to do with Islam or with Lebanon," said Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. "This is absolutely not the way we express our opinions." Saniora suggested some in Lebanon may have been inspired by what happened in Syria. "It is as if (the Syrian protests) were a lesson to some in Lebanon to do the same," he told Future TV.

The trouble in Lebanon threatened to take a sectarian spin as protesters stoned the nearby St. Maroun Church, one of the city's main Maronite Catholic churches, and private property in Ashrafieh, a Christian area near Beirut's commercial district. Muslim clerics were seen trying to stop the protesters. The demonstrators also attacked policemen with stones and set fire to several fire engines, witnesses said. Black smoke was seen billowing from the area. They also burned Danish flags. Justice Minister Charles Rizk, speaking on LBC television, called on those who hold influence with the protesters to help end the upheaval. "What is the guilt of the citizens of Ashrafieh of caricatures that were published in Denmark? This sabotage should stop," said Rizk, a Christian. Any tension with sectarian flavor is a sensitive issue in Lebanon, where Muslims and Christian fought a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060205/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_prophet_drawings;_ylt=Am5gavWVJUfLUOWwv6hk 7kKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ-

[Petronas]

Stories like these also make more plausible the reports that Saddam's WMDs were transferred through Syria into Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, where they remain under Hezbollah/Iranian control.

Lebanon admits it approved weapons transfer to Hezbollah
26/02/2006

The Lebanese government publicly admitted recently, for the first time, that it had permitted the delivery of a convoy of arms from Syria to Hezbollah. The United Nations responded by issuing a condemnation. According to Lebanese sources, Lebanese soldiers halted a convoy of arms-laden trucks from Syria at an army checkpoint in the Lebanon Valley on January 31. However, the Lebanese Defense Ministry ordered the soldiers to allow the convoy to proceed.

A report on this incident then reached the UN's special envoy to the Middle East, Terje Larsen, in New York, and Larsen instructed his staff to investigate. Eventually, the Lebanese government admitted both that it had allowed the convoy to pass, and that the arms had been destined for Hezbollah. The UN then published a statement condemning the Lebanese government for having blatantly violated UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which, inter alia, calls for disarming the country's militias.

The arms in the convoy originated apparently from Iran. It is not known how many trucks were in the convoy or what arms they carried. Arms smuggling from Syria into Lebanon has been going on for years, seemingly with the knowledge of the Lebanese government. In this fashion, huge quantities of arms from Iran and Syria have reached Hezbollah in recent years, including massive quantities of Katyushas and other rockets that are stationed in batteries in southern Lebanon and are aimed at Israel.

However, this is the first time that the Lebanese have publicly admitted the existence of these convoys, much less that it has been authorizing arms deliveries to Hezbollah. The convoy's passage was apparently approved by the office of Defense Minister Elias Murr, in coordination with the office of Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud.

According to a statement published by the UN on February 13, the UN forces in Lebanon were initially unaware of the convoy's passage, though reports of the incident reached them later. When the news reached Larsen, he demanded clarifications from Beirut, adding that if the reports were true, the action constituted a gross violation of Resolution 1559. Larsen's office is responsible, inter alia, for overseeing implemention of this resolution, which was passed in September 2004. In response, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's office confirmed the convoy's arrival, but did not specify for whom the arms were destined. At the same time, the UN contacted the Lebanese Defense Ministry, which informed it that the arms were destined for Hezbollah. The ministry added that the army permitted the transfer of weapons to the "resistance" forces - i.e. Hezbollah - in accordance with a decision made by the Lebanese government.

Following receipt of this information, the UN published a second statement, in which it condemned the incident as a grave violation of Resolution 1559, expressed concern and demanded that Beirut take steps to prevent a repetition.

Hezbollah claims that it is not a "militia," and therefore, the resolution's demand that all Lebanese militias be disarmed does not apply to the organization. This interpretation has also been adopted by the Syrian government, Lahoud and several Lebanese cabinet ministers. As a result, Hezbollah has enjoyed preferential treatment compared to other Lebanese militias. In contrast, the Lebanese army has at times confiscated arms shipments to Palestinian organizations based in Lebanon. In December 2005, for instance, after a Palestinian group with ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's organization, Al-Qaida in Iraq, fired Katyushas at Israel, Lebanon arrested some members of the group and confiscated their weapons.

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/687109.html

[NYer]

Hat Tip to Rantburg -

Smoking Gun In Hariri Murder? (http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=4314)

The sources alluded to what was mentioned in commission chief Judge Serge Brammertz's report on achieving a major breakthrough, and cited sources in the international commission that "the breakthrough came about by finding solid proof that periodic meetings were held between Lebanese and Syrian security officials and officials in a Lebanese group known for its allegiance to Syria, in addition to analyzing scores of phone calls held between security officials in that group, the Syrian intelligence center in Beirut, and an important official head office which German Judge Detlev Mehlis referred to in his first report.

The sources confirmed that "analysis of the phone calls, which began on the evening of Sunday 13 February 2005 and continued until 4 pm the following day--in other words, four hours after the crime took place--showed that most of the conversation revolved around the crime. In addition, the commission received the text of a very important phone call held between a high-ranking Lebanese official and his Syrian counterpart in which the former confirmed to the latter that the assassination had taken place and Al-Hariri had in fact been killed."

[NYer]

Hariri Update. (http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/05/new_information.shtml#014001)

According to the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Serge Brammertz, the United Nations investigator looking into the assassination of the late Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, is now almost certain there was an underground blast in the operation. Brammertz apparently increasingly believes that there were, in fact, two blasts, one above ground and one below, a theory initially raised privately by members of the Hariri family. This is not the first time that the hypothesis has resurfaced, but this time there is much more to suggest that Brammertz is indeed thinking along these lines. I've heard from a very reliable UN source that investigators have found new information from the blast site, and in his first report, dated March 14, Brammertz noted that his team had "also further examined the possibility of an aboveground, underground or combination impact."

An underground explosion would virtually seal the murder as a Syrian-led operation, since only the Syrians would have had the bureaucratic means, and influence, to organize the road works needed to plant a device of that magnitude.

More at link.

[NYer]

The Assad government asserts its right to hasten its own demise. (http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2006/05/syrias_warrant.php) What are they thinking?

[Petronas]

Interesting to see the Palestinian Authority on the other side from Hezbollah. Does that mean Hamas, or just Mahmoud Abbas?

Lebanese PM calls for cease-fire amid rifts among Arabs
Posted: 15-07-2006 , 19:00 GMT

In an emotional televised speech, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora called on the United Nations to broker an immediate cease-fire between Hizbullah and Israel to end the latter's land, sea and air offensive against Lebanon. He also pledged to reassert government authority all over Lebanese territory. That would meet a repeated U.N. and U.S. demand.

According to the AP, Lebanon sought support from fellow Arabs at an emergency meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday. But sharp rifts erupted over as some Arab states denounced Hizbullah for starting the conflict.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal called the Hizbullah's actions "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible," telling his counterparts: "These acts will pull the whole region back to years ago, and we cannot simply accept them." Supporting his stance were representatives of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, delegates said. Another camp, led by Syria, defended Hizbullah as carrying out "legitimate acts in line with international resolutions and the U.N. charter, as acts of resistance," delegates said.

http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Lebanon/200799

[Petronas]

HMS Illustrious sent to Lebanon as Britons told: get ready to flee
16/07/2006

The Government has ordered the aircraft carrier Illustrious to sail to the Middle East ready for the possible evacuation of thousands of British nationals trapped inside Lebanon. Illustrious will sail to Lebanon with the assault ship Bulwark as part of what government officials insisted last night was contingency planning, in case the situation deteriorates further and a full evacuation becomes necessary.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "This is simply a prudent part of our contingency planning. HMS Illustrious and HMS Bulwark will take a few days to arrive in the region. What they will do there, if anything, has not been specified. There has been no decision taken to evacuate."

France has said that it is ready to evacuate its nationals and the United States government announced yesterday that it is planning for the possible evacuation of 25,000 American civilians if the crisis worsens. Thousands of foreign nationals have fled the country since it was first attacked by Israeli war planes five days ago. ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=H0GDW0EM1DYTZQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQ WIV0?xml=/news/2006/07/16/wleb16.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/07/16/ixuknews.html

[Petronas]

Lebanese website blames Hizbullah for Qana deaths
08.01.06, 07:53

Anti-Syrian elements in Lebanon openly point finger at Hizbullah as guilty of killing of dozens of civilians in order to curtail plans for disarming group. 'Hizbullah has placed rocket launcher on building's roof and brought invalid children inside in bid to provoke Israeli response,' they write
Roee Nahmias

Is Hizbullah behind the tragic incident in the village of Qana that claimed the lives of some 60 people? While the Israeli army continues to investigate the circumstances leading to the building's collapse, some in Lebanon do not hesitate to point the finger at the Shiite organization and claim it is to blame for the death of dozens.

The Lebanese website LIBANOSCOPIE ( http://www.libanoscopie.com/fulldoc.asp?doccode=994&cat=2 ), associated with Christian elements in the country and which openly supports the anti-Syrian movement called the "March 14 Forces," reported that Hizbullah has masterminded a plan that would result in the killing of innocents in the Qana village, in a bid to foil Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's "Seven Points Plan", which calls for deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon and the disarming of Hizbullah.

"We have it from a credible source that Hizbullah, alarmed by Siniora's plan, has concocted an incident that would help thwart the negotiations.
Knowing full well that Israel will not hesitate to bombard civilian targets, Hizbullah gunmen placed a rocket launcher on the roof in Qana and brought disabled children inside, in a bid to provoke a response by the Israeli Air Force. In this way, they were planning to take advantage of the death of innocents and curtail the negotiation initiative," the site stated.

The site's editors also claimed that not only did Hizbullah stage the event, but that it also chose Qana for a specific reason: "They used Qana because the village had already turned into a symbol for massacring innocent civilians, and so they set up 'Qana 2'." Notably, the incident has indeed been dubbed "The second Qana massacre" by the Arab media.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2C7340%2CL-3284514%2C00.html#n

[Petronas]

U.S. to provide military aid to Lebanon, if it opposes Hezbollah
Friday 4th August, 2006

U.S. Defense Department officials plan to provide spare parts for the Lebanese military subject to conditions, a senior defense official said Friday. The '1206 funding,' named for the section of the 2006 National Defense Authorization Act that authorizes it, is designed to help other countries build capacity within their national military forces, Bryan Whitman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, told Pentagon reporters.

The authority allows the Defense Department, in consultation with the State Department, to spend up to $200 million a year to help other countries become stronger partners in the global war on terror, Whitman explained. Defense had requested the 1206 authority for years, but received the authorization in the 2006 defense budget. President Bush approved the program in early May, before the onset of violence between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah militia forces, and the department notified Congress of the decisions earlier this week. Congress now has until Aug. 16 to raise any objections.

In addition to Lebanon, Pakistan, Thailand, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Trans-Saharan Africa, the Gulf of Guinea and the Caribbean Basin are slated to receive between $5 million and $27 million in 1206 funding, Whitman said. These funds will address specific needs in those countries and regions, from upgrading sensors and communication equipment, to improving surveillance sites to providing night-vision goggles for tactical forces, he said.

In the case of Lebanon, the Defense Departments plans to spend $10 million to buy spare parts for vehicles, armored personnel carriers, helicopters and commercial utility cargo vehicles for the Lebanese military, Whitman said. And although Defense is taking steps to buy the spare parts, Whitman emphasized that actually handing them over to Lebanon will be based on several conditions. These conditions, agreed to by the Defense and State departments, are:

A firm commitment from the Lebanese government that it will use its military to keep Hezbollah in check;

A verified vetting process that will screen the Lebanese army for members with loyalties to Hezbollah; and

A verified cease-fire, with Hezbollah pulling back beyond the Litani River in southern Lebanon to give an opportunity for the Lebanese army to establish itself there.

The 1206 funding for Lebanon's military would be just one of many U.S. efforts, most under the purview of the State Department and in cooperation with the international community, to help stabilize the situation there. 'It's a tool in the toolbox, so to speak,' Whitman said. 'We see it as something that you can apply with some degree of flexibility and sometimes it doesn't take a lot to have a significant impact in some countries,' Whitman said. 'The payback and the outcomes and the results can be significant for a rather modest investment,' he said. 'And it prevents ... U.S. forces from having to deal with the situation.'

Marine Gen. James Jones, commander of U.S. European Command, emphasized the importance of the new 1206 authority during early April testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. 'It is much more cost effective to prevent conflicts than to stop one once it's started,' he said. 'I cannot overstate the importance of our theater security cooperation programs as the centerpiece to securing our homeland from irregular and catastrophic threats of the 21st century.' Jones called the new 1206 authority a paradigm shift that represents a critical first step in security cooperation reform. 'The authority provided in Section 1206 is an important tool in our efforts to implement a strategy that recognizes the changed security landscape,' he said.

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=f2e9e77b4a668ab4

[Petronas]

Israeli Army in Race against a UN Ceasefire in Lebanon
August 12, 2006, 3:52 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israeli forces are pressing forward with the wide-scale operation against Hizballah which DEBKAfile reports was launched four days ago on Wednesday, Aug. 8.

The campaign will continue until the ceasefire called for in Security Resolution 1701 approved Friday, Aug. 11, is enforced on the ground – if and when that happens.

It is carried forward by four expanded divisions of 11 brigades, about 12,000 fighting men. Head of the Ground Forces Branch Maj.-Gen Benny Gantz is leading the IDF’s South Lebanon command.

The first stage of the new operation has succeeded in its objective of encircling Hizballah’s 1,500-strong force in a large swathe stretching from the Litani River in the north, to Tyre in the southwest.

This tactic follows Israel’s 1982 Lebanon War stratagem of pushing Palestinian forces out of South Lebanon up to Beirut and then holding them to siege.

Now, Israeli troops are pushing Hizballah into the Tyre enclave that also encompasses the Palestinian refugee camps of Rashidiya and Bourj al-Shamali, in order to contain it there. In central and northern Lebanon, Hizballah strength will be left intact with two of its three rocket brigades - medium and long range - for the time being. They will be left to the Air Force to destroy.

In the last few hours, Hizballah’s command and control in the south is showing signs of distress after finding itself cut off from reinforcements and re-supply from the north by the rapid Israeli advances of the last four days.

DEBKAfile’s military sources update Israel military movements:

The Northern Division: From Wednesday, this division has been advancing north from Israel’s northernmost town of Metulla towards the plain of Nabatea, north of the Litani River, taking the town of Marjayun en route. Early Friday Aug. 11, when Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and defense minister Amir Peretz gave the go ahead for the expanded offensive, the division split in two. One headed north and entered the village of Blat east of the crook in the Litani River – a vantage point for artillery control of the Nabatean plain to the west, and Hasbaya to the east.

The second segment of the Northern Division has been positioned since Thursday on the southern bank of the Litani after capturing Qantara.

For the moment, this division is positioned on a number of hilltops along the river bank with fire control over parts of the Nabatea plain.

Saturday or Sunday morning, these troops should reach the Hardaleh bridge, one of the two linking central Lebanon to the south.

In this part of the front, Israeli troops are fighting Hizballa’s Sector No. 5.

Our military sources report that the Northern Division has encountered little Hizballah resistance in its push north. They are estimated to have gone to ground to await their moment to counter-attack. Local inhabitants in this area are friendly, some even point Israeli troops to possible Hizballah hideouts and arms caches.

Division 162: Since Wednesday, this division under the command of Brig.-Gen Guy Tsur, has been driving north along the eastern bank of Wadi Saluki in the Eastern Sector of South Lebanon up to the Central Sector. Saturday, this division fetched up at Froun village on a hilltop opposite the Litani and west of Taibe and Deir Mimas. This high point affords the division fire control of the Qeaqea bridge, the second most important one spanning the Litani.

The bridge was destroyed by an Israeli air strike at the outset of the war.

This division is fighting Hizballah’s Sectors 3 and 4.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the division commanded by Tsur is now following a westerly route along the Litani’s southern bank up to the Mediterranean coast and a place called Burj el Haoua, which is midway between Sidon and Tyre south of Beirut.

Once in position there, the IDF will be able:

1. To tighten the siege of Tyre from the north.

2. Be ready to cross the Litani and head north of the river if ordered to do so.

Division 91: Under the command of Brig. Gen Gal Hirsch, this division has also been in motion since Wednesday heading west to the Mediterranean coast from a point north of Bin Jubeil. The members of this division fought heavy battles at Ras Baida north of the Israeli town of Rosh Hanikra, and at the villages of Shmaa, Majdel Zun and Mansura south of Tyre. By Saturday morning, this division had managed to stabilize a line south of Tyre from a point north of Bin Jubeil up to Ras Baida, thereby completing the siege of Tyre from the south.

A fourth division operating mostly undercover with special operations units took control Friday and Saturday of sections of the dividing seam between Divisions 162 and 91. This gap covers the war arenas of Qana village, Jouiya and Maarake. This division has been entrusted with tightening the eastern section of the siege enclosing Tyre and preventing Hizballah harassing the flanks and rear of the two divisions.

Late last week, Hassan Nasrallah managed to rush several hundreds of fighters of his Bader Force to reinforce this arena.

DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources report that this broad IDF campaign is planned to proceed over the weekend and early next week, on the assumption that Washington and the United Nations will step in at some early point and threaten to declare Israel in violation of the ceasefire resolution until it is stopped.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1200

[Vancouver]

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3290800,00.html
Excerpt:
IDF forces operating north of Metula on the Lebanese side of the border located a truck filled with explosives; military officials estimate terrorists planned to detonate the truck near the Lebanon-Israel border. The soldiers attacked the truck and it was destroyed inside Lebanese territory.

[Vancouver]

A car bomb has gone off near Sidon and the adjacent Ein Hilwe, seriously injuring one of the Lebanese officers who investigated Syria's murder of Hariri.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/5315098.stm

[Petronas]

TERRORISM: UN FORCE IN LEBANON 'ENEMY OF ISLAM' SAYS AL-QAEDA NO.2
Sep-11-06 14:50

Al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri has lashed out at the multinational United Nations force deployed to safeguard the ceasefire in Lebanon, describing it as a "enemy of Islam." Al-Zawahiri's remarks are contained in a video recording screened by the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera, which seems aimed to coincide with the fight anniversary of the 11 Sept, 2001 al-Qaeda attacks in the United States.

"The most negative aspect of resolution 1701 [the UN resolution which among other things demands the deployment of the force] is that it decrees the presence of the Jewish state and divides the Palestinian and Lebanese mujahadeen through the international force, an enemy of Islam," al-Zawahiri said. "Moreover it criminalises any Jihad against the Jewish state and criminalises the attacks of the mujahadeen," he added.

The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera said that in part of the footage Osama bin-Laden's deputy appeals to the Lebanese population to reject resolution 1701 and to take up arms against Israel and the West.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.338719694&par=0

[NYer]

Ali Hamadi, implicated in the murder of USN Diver Robert Stethem (http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/rdstethe.htm) on TWA Flight 847 in 1985 and recently paroled by Germany, has now rejoined Hezbollah. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,213521,00.html)

http://images.washtimes.com/photos/full/20051220-104328-4224.jpg
Robert Dean Stethem SW-2 (Diver)

[Petronas]

Spanish Commander: Possible Qaida Threat to U.N. Troops
Beirut, 19 Sep 06, 16:00

U.N. troops in Lebanon may be threatened by radical groups such as Al-Qaida, the head of Spain's military contingent in the country, Colonel Luis Melendez, said in an interview published Tuesday.
"There are direct threats not made directly by locals, but others who have nothing to lose in this conflict," Melendez said, quoted by the daily El Pais.

"I am more concerned about a group which is foreign to the Lebanese, such as Al-Qaida, than about Hizbullah," said the Spanish officer, whose troops have deployed along the "blue line" between Israel and southern Lebanon, a region traditionally held by the group.

About 560 Spanish soldiers arrived in Lebanon on Friday to join the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and have set up their headquarters two kilometers from southeastern Taibe. Spain is to send a total of 1,100 soldiers to Lebanon, the third largest contingent after Italy and France.

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&709795B2B3BF4AD6C22571EE00470989

[Petronas]

Lebanese civilians: Arms flow in from Syria
Updated Nov. 18, 2006 11:29

Lebanese civilians close to the border with Syria told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that weapons for Hizbullah were being brought in by the truckload at night. Lebanese Army troops on duty at the border refused to confirm the claims.

This correspondent watched as a line of trucks and lorries several kilometers long built up at one crossing on the road from Lebanon into Syria. The trucks, en route from Beirut to Damascus, were laden with a mixture of goods: everything from construction materials to fruits and vegetables. But in the late afternoon wintry chill they were stationary; their drivers had disappeared and only the occasional soldier kept guard every few hundred meters.

"They don't move in the day," said Yusuf Saad, a taxi driver waiting at the border crossing. Saad, who had watched this correspondent from the other side of the road for some time before signaling for me to come over, added that "It's much easier for them to drive at night." He nodded toward the distant Syrian mountain range. "There's not so much traffic on the road. And I can tell you" - his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper - "they might be going in with produce, but they're coming out with weapons. They hide the rockets under the goods and that's how they're able to bring them into the country."

No one in the Lebanese Army would confirm Saad's observations. The soldiers here don't like journalists, and reporters are warned against taking any photographs or conducting any interviews. But a young officer softened a little as the day wore on Thursday and allowed some filming to take place - but only in the direction of Syria. By then cars had piled up in both directions. A number of trucks drove past, headed for Beirut. "Journalists lie," the officer explained. "During the war they came here and told lies about the border not working. They said there was chaos. But as you can see, everything is completely under control."

A 40-minute drive southwards from the border and the Lebanese town of Baalbeck welcomes one with signs in English and Arabic. The narrow streets are a labyrinth of hooting cars and busy alleyways, built alongside ancient Roman temple ruins. Observant Muslim women, covered in long-flowing hijabs, walk alongside pretty girls dressed in the latest fashion. The incongruity, however, exists only on the outside; as one soon finds from talking to the people, if there's one thing everyone here agrees on it's support for Syria - and condemnation of Israel.

After a few questions, this correspondent was quickly directed to the office of the local Hizbullah chief. He would not give his name and he would not permit photographing of the building from outside. What he did say, and repeatedly, is that Hizbullah is supported by at least 90 percent of residents here. In apparent confirmation, posters of Hizbullah's leader Hassan Nasrallah cover just about every available outdoor space - from the food and clothing stores to the trees that line the central street. "Syria helps us," this official said, while avoiding answering whether that help includes the supply of weapons. "They looked after our people during the war with Israel and they help now with humanitarian assistance. We owe them a lot."

Fifty-three year old electrician Hassan Taha, a strident Hizbullah supporter who lives opposite one of the areas the Israeli Air Force bombed last summer - a crater marks where a school, supermarket and hotel once stood - was emphatic, however. "Of course weapons are coming from the border," he said. "Everybody here knows that. They're coming from both Iran and Syria and also China and Russia. We need the weapons. We are ready now if Israel strikes us. "If Hizbullah did not exist," Taha went on, "Israel would annihilate us. We are very happy with the results of the war. Hizbullah was always the most popular here, but now we're even more popular."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378417972&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[NYer]

Michael Totten reports on a Coup Attempt in Progress (http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001331.html)

[NYer]

Saad Hariri tells Iran to Bug Off. (http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/12/lebanese-parliament-leader-saad-hariri.html)

Lebanon's Parliament majority leader Saad Hariri said Thursday he has informed Iran that it is playing a "dangerous role" in "splitting" the Sunni and Shiite Moslems in Lebanon.

"Iran is playing a dangerous role in this regard and I've sent them a letter through their ambassador, informing them" of that, Hariri said in an interview with Algerian TV.

"Lebanon is the country of coexistence. There is no difference between Lebanese Muslims and Christians," he said.

"We have taken a decision not to join any axis.... we don't want to be in the Iranian-Syrian axis. We want to be in the moderate Lebanese-Arab axis," Hariri added.

[NYer]

Lebanon Burns. (http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/01/at-least-3-are-dead-after-hezbollah.html)

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/images/Beirut%20Tires%20Burning.jpg

Gateway Pundit has a rundown along with links to others covering the latest activities of Iran's proxies.

[NYer]

Lebanon erupts again. (http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/01/lebanon_erupts_again_4_dead_sc.php)

[Vancouver]

Lebanese-Palestinian fighting has spread to Ein Hilwe in southern Lebanon, near Sidon:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3241178

[NYer]

Lebanese Prime Minister: Syria is threatening my country. (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1627222,00.html)

Lebanese authorities have evidence that Syrian intelligence operatives are behind the ongoing violent clashes in a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli as part of an effort to destablize the country. Prime Minister Siniora also says that Syrian elements, pursuing what he calls "a clear determination to subjugate the country," could be responsible for political killings in Lebanon including the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Siniora accused the Syrian regime of trying to intimidate Lebanese from supporting the court and said that the pursuit of justice entailed risks, including "instability in the country, planting bombs here and there."

Also, more on the action at Ein-el-Hellhole. (http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4271)

[Casey]

Fatah Islam Threatens to Kill Lebanese Politicians

Fatah al-Islam leader threatened to kill Lebanese politicians, including Premier Fouad Saniora, if the army staged a final showdown on its militants in the northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared.

"Leading political figures on Lebanese territory would be targeted by explosive charges and booby-trapped motorcycles if we were confronted by the (Lebanese) government," said Abu Masaab in a telephone interview with the Arabic daily Asharq Alawsat from his Nahr al-Bared hideout.

Topping the "Assassination List" were Saniora and Druze leader Walid Jumblat, said Abu Masaab, identified by the newspaper as a 30-year-old Palestinian from Fatah al-Islam's second row leadership.

He said Shahine Shahine, a Saudi, took over the leadership of Fatah al-Islam after the "disappearance" of its leader Shaker Abssi and his deputy commander Abu Hureira.

Abu Masaab said Shahine, Fatah al-Islam's military commander and official spokesman, who is flanked by four aides, pledged allegiance to al-Qaida.

He said he was charged with recruiting via the Internet the largest possible number of young men from various Arab and Islam states to join Fatah al-Islam.

He said among those countries were Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Algiers, Morocco and Syria.



Beirut, 13 Jun 07, 09:53

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&BBC062B3A89C2875C22572F9002B19A2

[Casey]

Anti-Syrian MP killed in Beirut explosion

Reuters
Wednesday, June 13, 2007


BEIRUT Lebanese anti-Syrian parliamentarian Walid Eido was killed on Wednesday, with at least nine other people, when a bomb ripped through his car in western Beirut, security sources said.

One of Eido's sons was among the dead by the blast on Beirut's seafront which also wounded at least 11 other people, they said.

Eido, 64, was a member of the majority anti-Syrian parliamentary bloc of Saad al-Hariri, which controls the Beirut government.

"His car was targeted by an explosive device," a security source said.

Eido had been a vocal opponent of Syrian influence in Lebanon and an ally of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri before his assassination by a massive car bomb in February 2005.

Eido was killed just three days after a U.N. Security Council resolution came into effect setting up an international tribunal into the Hariri assassination.

Saad al-Hariri and his allies in the majority coalition accuse Syria of the Hariri killing and attacks on other anti-Syrian figures which followed. Syria denies involvement.

The blast hit near an amusement park and military sporting club. Television pictures showed a burnt car set ablaze and shattered windows at a nearby restaurant.

It was the sixth blast to hit Beirut and the surrounding areas in less than four weeks. Two people have been killed in the five previous blasts, all caused by bombs.

Eido was the seventh anti-Syrian politician to be killed since Hariri. His murder would further fuel heightened tensions between the government and the pro-Damascus opposition led by Hezbollah, the powerful Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group determined to topple what it regards as a pro-U.S. cabinet.


Fellow anti-Syrian deputy Wael Abou-Faour blamed Damascus for the blast.

"Walid Eido was a symbol of democracy in Lebanon. Walid Eido was assassinated because there is a decision by the Syrian regime to terminate the March 14 bloc," Abou-Faour told Al Arabiya television. "The Assad regime did not have enough of the blood of the free in Lebanon."

He said the purpose of the killing was to change the balance of power in the Lebanese parliament, making the current anti-Syrian majority into a minority, before it elects a president.

The explosion was the latest in a series of bombings in Lebanon, where the army is battling Islamist militants at a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the country.

Two Lebanese soldiers were killed in fresh fighting at the Nahr al-Bared camp on Wednesday, security sources said.

Al Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam militants attacked Lebanese army posts set up at newly seized territory in the outskirts of Nahr al-Bared camp overnight and in early morning, they said.

One of the dead was an officer shot by a sniper, they said.

Army units, which had seized two militant positions in heavy fighting on Tuesday, responded by firing dozens of 155 mm artillery rounds at the camp. Black smoke rose above the camp's cinderblock buildings as thuds of explosions rocked the area.

The battle for the camp, Lebanon's bloodiest internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war, has killed 144 people, including 62 soldiers, more than 50 militants and 32 civilians, since it erupted on May 20.

© The Gazette 2007

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=ff37bc04-0aa4-413f-9b54-7f2168d51f64&k=82083

[NYer]

Nancy Pelosi's Syrian pals reached out and touched someone.

[keith]

Lebanese rally behind their army
By Hassan M. Fattah

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

BEIRUT: With the Lebanese government mired in political crisis, Parliament unable to meet and sectarian tensions rising, many of this country's institutions are slowly crumbling away.

One institution, however, has stood out, especially in the weeks of a bloody standoff with Islamic militants at Nahr al Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in the north - the army.

It has lost dozens of soldiers in the fight and has shown its weaknesses, but as it tries to close in on the foreign militants holed up in the camp, it has served as a rare source of unity in this fractured land. The question is whether it will maintain that status or be dragged into politics.

"The army is the only national institution left in the country," said Timor Goksel, a former spokesman for the United Nations force in Lebanon and now a lecturer at the American University in Beirut. "They have credibility and respect in the country. If this is lost, who will be able to take over?"

Political forces from all over the country have rallied around the army, seeking to preserve its independence and ensure that its ranks survive its most significant challenge since it was united at the end of the civil war in 1990.

Banners declaring support for the army and its nationalist cause have been hastily strung up in many neighborhoods in Beirut and other cities. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, highlighted his support even as he warned against the army entering the Nahr al Bared camp, cautioning politicians not to risk the future of the army. And Christian leaders, including the opposition leader Michel Aoun, have stumbled over each other to encourage the army to aggressively rout out the militants.

In a church on the outskirts of Beirut recently, mourners who came to pay their respects to Sergeant George Akl, killed in fighting with Islamist militants, underscored the national mood.

Despite the tragedy, his family said, recounting the outpouring of support they received, his death was not in vain. After all, Akl died for the nation, not for a warlord.

"The army is the only clean institution left in this country," said Massoud Fares, Akl's brother-in-law, who also serves in the military.

While numerous interviews made it clear that the army is one of the very few remaining institutions that can command the respect of all the people, increasingly it is caught between the opposing forces of the UN-backed government and the Iran-backed opposition.

"If everybody is O.K. with the army and everyone is backing it, it becomes the center of gravity, the magnet that can pull all the factions together in Lebanon," said Elias Hanna, a retired general and college professor. "But that is only if it can stay outside the manipulation and machinations of the politicians."

During the bloody civil war in Lebanon, the army was divided into brigades by religion, including a Christian branch and a Muslim one. The 6th Brigade, made up of Shiites, was once derided with the motto "We serve and defect" when it went over to local militias in the early 1980s.

When most of the militias disarmed in the 1990s, except Hezbollah, which continued to fight the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon, the army became a national force, with the various sects integrated into the units, and its leadership steering clear of politics.

During back-to-back protests held in central Beirut in March 2005, one led by Hezbollah in support of Syria, the other by the so-called March 14 movement, which demanded Syria's withdrawal, the army delicately managed the crowds, maintaining order but never taking sides, analysts say. When the Hezbollah-led opposition staged a sit-in in December, shutting down much of central Beirut, the army kept the protestors and supporters of the government apart, and set up massive barbed wire cordons, but did not favor a specific side.

"The army was able to manage the violence, but not stop it," Hanna said. "They allowed a certain degree of chaos and violence to prevent a larger clash, so it succeeded. It tried to be the pressure valve and prevented worse things from happening."

But when the battle broke out with militants belonging to the Qaeda-inspired Fatah al Islam at Nahr al Bared on May 20, the army faced an entirely new challenge that quickly showed its weaknesses.

The incident began with a morning raid by the government-run Internal Security Forces on a location in Tripoli, where suspected bank robbers were hiding out, and quickly escalated into an all-out firefight with Fatah al Islam.

Untested, unprepared and outgunned, the army lost 23 soldiers the first day.

The army has also struggled to control civilian gunmen, some of whom claimed to belong to the Future Movement run by Saad al Hariri, who have also fired at the camp, at times targeting Palestinian civilians and further inflaming tensions with the Palestinians.

Fear remains that the violence will spread to other camps, especially Ain al Hilwe, the largest in the country.

Many fear that continuing the siege will only pressure the army further and stoke growing anger among Palestinians that the army is, in fact, targeting them. A major reason for the unanimity of support, they say, is that the victims of the siege were largely Palestinians and outsiders.

"It is easy to get people to rally behind the army when you are fighting a group that is labeled terrorist, when people don't know anything about it," said Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, warning that other challenges might not inspire such unanimous support.

"People have rallied behind the army because they are tired of wars and battles," the professor said. "They want quiet, they want peace."

Nada Bakri contributed reporting.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/20/news/lebanon.php

[Vancouver]

Fatah al-Islam, a Palestinian gang with at least a little foreign support, which was blowing stuff up around Lebanon, has now been essentially wiped out.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/06/21/lebanon.ap/index.html

[Vancouver]

A shootout is underway in Tripoli, as the Lebanese tried pay a call on a Fatah al-Islam person (not necessarily Lebanese or Palestinian) who lives there. The army has brought in at least one armoured troop carrier.
No links in English yet.

[Casey]

Bomb kills 3 Lebanese soldiers in Palestinian camp

Story Highlights

• Blast occurred as the army was dismantling bombs
• Now 79 Lebanese soldiers have been killed in battle against Fatah Islam
• Lebanese army: We will not halt offensive until all killers "brought to justice"
• Lebanese authorities: All militants who fought the army must be handed over

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Three Lebanese soldiers were killed and a fourth was critically injured on Saturday while dismantling a bomb placed by al Qaeda-inspired Islamic militants in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, officials said.

The deadly blast occurred as the army was dismantling bombs, booby traps and land mines inside the camp, reported a senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Saturday's fatalities bring to 79 the number of soldiers killed in the battle against Fatah Islam militants holed up in the Nahr el-Bared camp near the port city of Tripoli. More than 150 have been wounded since fighting erupted on May 20.

Heavy machine gun fire and bursts of artillery shells reverberated across the camp Saturday and sent up plumes of black and white smoke.

The state-run National News Agency said the army was responding to gunfire attacks on its positions around the camp and was pounding suspected militant hideouts deep inside the camp with artillery barrages.

Later Saturday, a gun battle broke out in the Abu Samra neighborhood of Tripoli, Lebanon, as the Lebanese army pursued a suspected militant, a security official reported. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the suspected militant fired back at the army, and soon thereafter, other gunmen opened fire at an army checkpoint nearby.

The army brought in reinforcements, and an expanded gun battle ensued, he added. Witnesses reported explosions, indicating the use of rocket propelled grenades. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties.

The official said a second suspected militant had been arrested earlier in the day during a raid on a house in Tripoli. He did not specify whether the militants were suspected members of Fatah Islam.

Prior to Saturday evening, fighting had not occurred in Tripoli since the first week of the conflict with Fatah Islam.

The army issued a statement Saturday saying it would not halt its military offensive until "those responsible for the deaths of soldiers are brought to justice."

Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr declared victory over the militants Thursday, and the army said the next day it had overrun Fatah Islam's main positions inside the camp.

But sporadic fighting has continued, and two top Fatah Islam leaders, Shaker al-Absi and his deputy, Abu Hureira, are still at large, along with an unknown number of fighters. They are believed to be holed up among the several thousand Palestinian civilians still inside sections of Nahr el-Bared not under army control.

Adding to the confusion, a Muslim cleric who has been acting as a mediator between the militants and the army, said earlier this week that the Fatah Islam fighters had agreed to stop firing.

Sheik Mohammed Haj of the Palestinian Scholars Association met with the militants' leaders during the week and later said Fatah Islam "has declared a cease-fire and will comply with the Lebanese army's decision to end military operations."

He said the militants would abide by conditions set by the army to end the fighting, but did not elaborate. TV stations and newspapers said the deal included handing over Fatah Islam's wounded and dismantling the group.

However, Lebanese authorities have said they will accept nothing less than a full handover of all militants who fought the army.

Fatah Islam militants inside the camp, who spoke to journalists by mobile phone in the early days of the fighting, could no longer be reached.

The fighting at Nahr el-Bared camp has been Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war, claiming the lives of at least 60 militants and more than 20 civilians.

Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman said Saturday that rival political leaders should put aside their differences for the sake of the soldiers killed fighting Fatah Islam.

"It should serve as a lesson for all the country's political leaders by pushing them as soon as possible to end internal divisions and meet for a new dialogue to find solutions for the various existing problems."

His appeal for unity came after Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa failed Friday to get Lebanon's feuding factions to resume talks.

Lebanon is facing its most serious political crisis since the end of the 1975-90 civil war as a result of the power struggle between pro-government and opposition groups. Rival Lebanese politicians have not met since a national dialogue conference ended last year without agreement.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.








Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/06/23/lebanon.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

[Casey]

Lebanese army pounds siege militants with artillery
Written by Nicolas Tohme
Saturday, 23 June 2007

NAHR AL BARED, Lebanon -- One Lebanese soldier was shot dead Saturday and an Islamist suicide bomber blew himself up and wounded several more, the military and a resident inside a besieged refugee camp said.


"One Lebanese soldier has been killed by a Fatah Al Islam sniper," an army spokesman said on the 35th day of the siege of Nahr Al Bared north of the country's second city, Tripoli.
A Palestinian resident of the camp said: "One Islamist blew himself up near an army position and several soldiers were wounded."

The latest fatalities take to at least 145 the number of people killed in the deadliest internal violence since the 1975 to 1990 civil war. The dead include 77 soldiers since the battle erupted May 20.

Lebanese artillery continued to bombard the Islamist militants Saturday as the army sought to end a sustained siege that has lasted nearly five weeks.

Extremists holed up inside the warren-like camp responded with bursts of automatic fire.

The brutal standoff continued despite defense minister Elias Murr saying Thursday that the military onslaught against Sunni Muslim fighters of the Al Qaeda-inspired Fatah Al Islam group "has ended."

Fires burned inside Nahr Al Bared and a pall of smoke hung over the southern part of the camp's single-storey buildings and narrow streets into which the remaining militants have retreated.

Their original stronghold in the "new camp" - a high-rise spillover to the north from the original refugee camp whose boundaries were set by the United Nations in 1948 - is now a wasteland of twisted concrete and shattered slabs.

The overall Fatah Al Islam toll is unknown, but at least 51 of their fighters are believed to have been killed.

An estimated 2,000 residents of the camp's pre-battle population of 31,000 are still inside Nahr Al Bared, with those who could flee now dispersed among other Palestinian camps around the country, most of them at nearby Beddawi.

Sheikh Mustafa Dawood, who leads Palestinian clerics trying to broker a ceasefire, entered the camp Friday and met militant spokesman Shahin Shahin who expressed the Islamists' desire to stick to a unilateral truce "in the hope of reaching a happy outcome."

But Dawood siad that Shahin also added "if there is shooting at us we will be forced to respond."

The go-betweens are continuing to seek a peaceful conclusion to the siege despite determination within the government and the military high command that it can only end in crushing defeat for the militants.

On Friday, the army again demanded the unconditional surrender of the Fatah Al Islam fighters, many of them thought to be hardened veterans from the Iraq insurgency.

http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070623-043213-6984r

Last Updated ( Saturday, 23 June 2007 )

[Vancouver]

Few details about the shootout in Tripoli
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6234076.stm

[Casey]

Lebanon army finds explosives, weapons , missiles in Tripoli raid
Sunday, 24 June, 2007 @ 1:00 AM


Triploi – The Lebanese army raided several houses in the district of Abi Samra in Tripoli and found explosives, ammunition and "RPG" missiles and a large quantity of weapons.


The raid took place this afternoon in the capital of northern Lebanon.

Last week the army arrested three suspected al Qaeda members in possession of weapons and explosives, in Bar Elias security sources said. The raids were prompted by tips from Fatah al Islam militants that were arrested by the army

The army has been fighting militants of Fatah al Islam since May 20, in the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el Bared

Update: 1:00 AM Sunday June 24,2007

The raid resulted in another battle for the Lebanese army with another batch of Fatah al Islam terrorists .

The terrorists fired missiles at the army which resulted in setting one of the armored vehicles on fire and the injury of 6 army personnel.

The army has managed to get the situation under control by encircling the terrorists . It is now chasing those responsible for firing at the army


http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2007/06/lebanon_army_fi_1.php

[Vancouver]

The raids were prompted by tips from Fatah al Islam militants that were arrested by the army.Tips! :D
Vee have vays of makink you talk.

[Petronas]

Civil War In the Making!

It is obvious that everybody is working for it! The real dialogue has stopped and the divide is widening. Each party has its own logic and does not want to listen to the other. No one accepts the argument of the other -- a pure civil war recipe.

Let us draw parallels with the 1975-1990 civil war that ended with the Taef accord. We are witnessing the same string of events that precipitated the 1975 war. It all started in early September 2004 with the near simultaneous extension of Emile Lahoud's presidential term and Resolution 1559, followed by the tragic assassination attempts and the string of bombings and incidents. Doesn't this strangely remind you of the 1975-1990 period?

Same actors, same players, same scenarios, same criminals are using the same moukhabarat (intelligence) book. They did not bother change their tactics. The population is being slowly polarized and all the ingredients of a civil war are shaping up. How can we stop that? Should the regional powers interfere? Should the other foreign powers interfere? Can we bring everything back to Lebanon and control our destiny on our own? Can we insulate Lebanon from all regional problems and power plays? Can Lebanon really become the Switzerland of the Middle East?

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/Forums.nsf/getforumbynumber?openform&276

[NYer]

Syria Invades Lebanon. (http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001483.html)

Syrian troops on Thursday reportedly have penetrated three kilometers into Lebanese territories, taking up positions in the mountains near Yanta in east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

The daily Al Mustaqbal, citing sources who confirmed the cross-border penetration, did not say when the procedure in the Fahs Hill overlooking Deir al-Ashaer in the Rashaya province took place.
The sources said Syrian troops, backed by bulldozers, were fortifying positions "in more than one area" along the Lebanese border, erecting earth mounds and digging "hundreds" of trenches and individual bunkers.

[NYer]

As a follow-up, a substantial escalation planned for mid-July? (http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD164807)

[Petronas]

Last month on a visit to Israel to examine its security situation I stood on the Lebanese border in the kibbutz of Misgav Am, on the heights over Qiryat Shmona. The Hezballah flag was clearly visible less than 1/2 mile away on a hilltop, not far from a UNIFIL base. This was the the area out of which three days later two rockets were fired into Qiryat Shmona. I believe that the area south of the Litani River is firmly under Hizballah control and that they have fully rearmed since the war last summer.

Fears of a New War with Hizbullah Brewing in Israel
Beirut, 09 Jul 07, 18:39

The Lebanese army post just a stone's throw from her home on Israel's northern border reminds Shula Asayag not only of last year's painful war but also of the new conflict she fears is brewing. Asayag's bed-and-breakfast business in the small rural frontline community of Zarit has failed to pick up a year after the devastating war between Israel and the Shiite militia Hizbullah, deepening her ominous premonition. "It has been relatively quiet, but recently there is tension in the air. We are at our wits' end because we sense new war is going to break out," said the 57-year-old immigrant from Morocco.

Israel is still coping with the after-effects of a war that weakened the government, failed to achieve its main aims and which critics say dealt a heavy blow to its deterrent image as a regional power, heightening the chances of renewed conflict. Officially, Israel cites improvements along the highly volatile frontier since Hizbullah sparked the war by capturing two Israeli servicemen in a brazen cross-border raid last July 12, just a few hundred meters (yards) from Zarit. Heavily armed Israeli troops on the edge of the community now face Lebanese soldiers and U.N. peacekeepers across a wadi that used to sprawl with Hizbullah militants and yellow flags.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the war last August 14, imposed tough limitations on Israel's foe, including banning Hizbullah militants from southern Lebanon and its weapons supplies from Iran and Syria. "All of the Hizbullah positions along the border are today taken up by the Lebanese army. U.N. forces are much more present in the area and are deployed in an entirely different way. So are we," said General Yossi Bachar who heads Israel's regional army command.

Across northern Israel, towns, businesses and homes targeted by more than 4,000 Hezbollah rockets have been almost entirely rebuilt and economic growth is gaining pace, despite a drop in the key tourism industry. But local residents and officials sense little real change beneath the surface, charging that while Hizbullah may be less visible, it remains ever-present and continues to enjoy deep-rooted support across the border.

"We hear the incitement against us, shrieking from the loudspeakers in village mosques across the border," said Asayag's neighbor, Shula Cohen. "Hizbullah has returned to the border fence recently. We can see their men carrying flags and observing us. Every little noise makes us jump. I am afraid at nights and I think the war will return."

In the 34 days of what the Jewish state calls the Second Lebanon war, 116 Israeli soldiers and 44 civilians were killed. More than 1,200 Lebanese died, most of them civilians.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has deplored the failure to reach a permanent ceasefire, release the captured soldiers or end Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace. He called persistent reports of breaches of the arms embargo along the Lebanon-Syria border "a major impediment" to a long-term solution.

Israeli Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, a former army chief and defense minister, warned recently that the Shiite militia has returned to its full pre-war power, and that its arsenal of rockets has been fully restocked.

Tension with Syria, which Israel accuses of supporting Hizbullah -and with Palestinian militants- has also increased since the war. Officials on both sides warn that any conflict this summer would engulf the entire region.

A rocket fired from Lebanon at the northern town of Kiryat Shmona last month underscored the volatility of the situation, although Israel blamed the strike on a radical Palestinian group and Hizbullah quickly denied involvement.

The perception in Israel that the war was a failure, exposing inadequacies in the army and government, has refused to subside and forced resignations. It could yet see Prime Minister Ehud Olmert lose his job. Two of the three leaders seen as bearing primary responsibility for the shortcomings -- army chief Dan Halutz and Defense Minister Amir Peretz -- stepped down earlier this year after a tidal wave of public anger. Olmert, who was accused of "severe failures" in an interim government report into the conflict, has so far clung on but will probably face new calls for his resignation when the Winograd commission releases its full report in August.

The war, together with a string of sex scandals and graft probes implicating both himself and his lieutenants, have rocked his government and saddled Olmert with the worst approval ratings for a prime minister in Israel's history. "A year later, we still haven't forgotten the failures of the war and the three responsible, one of whom still remains in power," said former reserve general Uzi Dayan, who led the protest movement following the conflict.

Yet towering above the anger, fear and frustration is nationwide concern over the fate of the two captured reservists, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, about whom there has been no news or sign of life. Micky Goldwasser, visiting for the first time the spot where her son was captured, has not given up hope that one day the pair will come home safe. Our hope for their return has not changed," she said, gazing across the border fence into Lebanon.

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&55A758E9DC12C243C22573130055F9A6

[Petronas]

Carpet Bombing of Fatah al-Islam Strongholds in Nahr al-Bared
Beirut, 12 Jul 07, 07:18

Lebanese Army gunners pounded terrorist strongholds with howitzers Thursday in an apparent attempt to set the stage for a final assault to uproot Fatah al-Islam militants from the northern Nahr al-Bared camp.
Six soldiers were killed in battle Thursday, the 54th day of the fight. The army command, in a communiqué, said the ongoing operation was aimed at "tightening the grip on the gunmen to force them surrender."

Tongues of flame and mushrooming poles of black smoke billowed into the sky over the Nahr al-Bared camp as shells slammed relentlessly into the ruins of the shantytown where Fatah al-Islam terrorists have been locked in a deadly standoff with the army since May 20. "Today's bombardment is a first step in the final battle against the terrorist group whose fighters have refused to surrender to the army," an army officer at the scene said.

The casualties reported Thursday brought to 180 the number of people killed, including 89 soldiers and at least 68 Islamists, since the fighting first erupted at Nahr al-Bared and the nearby Mediterranean port city of Tripoli on May 20.

Lebanese Army Artillery batteries were active day long striking Fatah al-Islam positions in the south of the camp deserted by the majority of its population. Shells crashed into some of the few bombed-out buildings still standing in the seafront camp, which has been left in ruins, with houses shattered and collapsed like packs of cards, vehicles burnt out and empty streets sprayed with chunks of rubble. An AFP correspondent said elite Lebanese soldiers were also locked in gun battles with the Islamists in the southern and eastern sectors of the camp.

The army brought in reinforcements overnight after more than 150 people, mostly Palestinian militants, fled the camp on Wednesday amid signs the army was readying for a final assault against the die-hard Islamists.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Fouad Saniora called for the army to "put a final end" to the Fatah al-Islam "terrorists", in an apparent green light to storm the camp. "The army is continuing tighten the noose around Nahr al-Bared and clear Islamist positions with the aim of forcing them to surrender," an army spokesman said, although he refused to speak of a final assault.
About 140 Palestinian militants, not connected to the Fatah al-Islam militiamen, were evacuated by military trucks to a Lebanese army barracks on Wednesday, a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) source said.

Around 20 women, believed to be Palestinian refugees, were evacuated separately by bus from Nahr al-Bared to the nearby camp of Beddawi, which has served as shelter for the bulk of displaced refugees. But relief workers said an effort to evacuate families of the Fatah al-Islam terrorists -- in all 45 children and 20 women -- on board Red Crescent and Red Cross ambulances have not succeeded. The evacuation was the first large-scale operation in three weeks from the camp where clashes have raged for more than seven weeks, often with the army gunners firing off heavy artillery.

The fighting erupted when the Islamists, who are of several Arab nationalities, launched a string of attacks on soldiers, killing 27 of them around the camp and in nearby Tripoli.

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&12C5DE9CFD76FE00C2257316001D2A5C

[Petronas]

Lebanon (Country threat level - 4): In a new development in the ongoing conflict between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam militants at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, militants launched an estimated one dozen Katuysha-type rockets from inside the camp on 13 July 2007. The 107mm rockets landed as far as 4 mi/7 km away in the Akkar Plain and into villages located on the outskirts of Tripoli -- located just 9 mi/16 km from the camp -- causing material damage but no injuries. Lebanese troops responded by firing heavy artillery shells into the camp. Exchanges of gunfire also continue.

Although fighting between the army and militants initially began in Tripoli after authorities attempted to arrest several militants suspected of being involved in a bank robbery in the port city, this development represents a possible escalation in the situation. It is not known if the militants are in possession of additional rockets or if they are capable of launching additional, more far-reaching attacks. Additionally, media reports state that during the evening hours of 12 July, a civilian was killed on a road near the Nahr al-Bared camp. As such, travelers should exercise caution if travel outside Tripoli or on the highways linking the refugee camps is necessary.

http://www.asigroup.com/HOTSPOTS.asp

[Petronas]

Lebanon: Army makes advances in camp as rivals hold talks in Paris
14-07-2007 , 14:53 GMT

The Lebanese army closed in on positions of Fatah al-Islam militants holed up in the besieged refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared on Saturday after two days of heavy fighting. The Lebanese soldiers exchanged machine-gun fire with the militants at the Palestinian camp in north Lebanon, which was coming under heavy army bombardment early Saturday.

A spokesman said the army has further closed in on the Islamists who were now only controlling an area 300 meters by 600 meters on a small hill inside the camp. The state-run National News Agency said the army made advances on the eastern flank of the camp. "The battle is nearing the decisive phase, and the military solution will not take much longer ... We should expect a sudden collapse of Fatah al-Islam," Sultan Abul Aynayn, head of the mainstream Fatah movement, was quoted as saying by the AFP.

Three more soldiers were killed in the latest clashes, and another died of wounds from fierce fighting on Thursday, an army spokesman said, raising to 11 its losses in two days. Military sources said the body of another soldier killed in the camp on Thursday was retrieved. They said 50 soldiers were also wounded on Friday. ...

http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Lebanon/215062

[Petronas]

Nahr al-Bared War Approaching End, Bodies of 39 Militants Found
Beirut, 18 Jul 07, 07:07

The battle against Islamists in the northern Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared was on Wednesday reportedly approaching the end with the Lebanese army now surrounding Fatah al-Islam militants in a very narrow area. The daily An Nahar said the new advances made Tuesday evening into the old sector of the camp left the terrorists encircled in an area no larger than 100 meters.

A military official said "the army is expanding its area of control and is closing in on remaining militants fighting in certain pockets of the Nahr al-Bared camp," he told The Associated Press. The official also said the military was in the "final stages of having full control" of the main road separating the new camp and the so-called "old camp" sections of Nahr al-Bared.

The Lebanese army announced Wednesday it has lost six soldiers in fighting with diehard Islamist guerrillas in Nahr al-Bared. The bodies of four soldiers, including victims of booby-trapped buildings, were recovered from the rubble of Nahr al-Bared camp and the death toll from Tuesday's clashes has gone up to three, from an earlier report of one dead, an army spokesman said.

The latest deaths brought the military's official toll to 107 in and around Nahr al-Bared and the nearby port city of Tripoli since its battle with the Islamists of Fatah al-Islam erupted on May 20. The Islamists have lost at least 74 fighters, not including militants buried inside the camp by comrades or abandoned under the rubble. Dozens of civilians are also feared to have been killed.

Meanwhile, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said the bodies of 39 Fatah al-Islam militants lay in the morgue of the state-run hospital in Tripoli, pending identification. It said DNA tests were being conducted on the bodies. And a military source said the army had recovered another 35 corpses during mopping-up operations in Nahr al-Bared, much of which has been reduced to mountains of rubble under a barrage of army tank and artillery fire.

Meanwhile, Fatah al-Islam fighters fired five Katyusha rockets that landed in a village about seven kilometers from the camp. Two more rockets crashed near the main highway in the nearby town of Minyeh. No casualties were reported in either attack. Occasional gunfire and the impact of rocket-propelled grenades could be heard from inside the camp Wednesday, suggesting that the militants continued to resist the army.(AP-AFP-Naharnet

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&E0B78FA4169067CCC225731C001C20A1

[NYer]

Fatah al Islam Leader Sings. (http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2007/07/report_links_le_1.php)

http://www.fedbybirds.com/pics/pgb45-thumb.jpg

An alleged leader of the Fatah al-Islam terrorist network has testified to interrogators that the group is linked to the head of Syria's intelligence apparatus Maj. Gen. Assef Shawkat, the brother-in-law of President Bashar Assad.

[Alli]

Hizballah: 'Ready To Attack Israel At Any Time'
Ahead of Condoleezza Rice’s visit to the region to meet with Israeli and Arab leaders, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared that the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist group is ‘ready to strike Israel at any time.’ Delivering a speech via video feed at a rally in Bint Jbail, Lebanon, Nasrallah said that the terrorist group will never be at peace with Israel. He said, “It is impossible to live with a back-stabbing enemy on our border, who has been assaulting us ever since it was born,” and stated that Hizballah still possesses rockets and missiles that “can hit any area in occupied Palestine if Israel attacks Lebanon.” The video showed Nasrallah speaking before a professionally printed backdrop which read in English for a targeted Western audience, “The Divine Victory.”

In Egypt, new Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayad said that Palestinian ‘resistance’ is legitimate, seeking to reassure those angry that the Fatah-run Palestinian government in the West Bank had stricken the term ‘resistance’ from its platform. He attempted to explain that it was excluded because it is too often associated with ‘armed struggle.’ Fayad said, “What is the essence of resistance, especially in light of the current occupation? Does it not begin with all possible efforts to strengthen the permanence of the Palestinian citizens on their land? That is precisely the government’s agenda.”

At the same time, a deployment of Jordanian forces into the West Bank is again being seriously considered by the Palestinian Authority, Israel and Jordan. Israel appears to prefer a Jordanian Arab force rather than a UN or NATO force. Jordan’s potential absorption of the West Bank as a new autonomous Jordanian territory has been also considered recently.

article (http://dailybriefings.threatswatch.org/2007/07/hizballah-ready-to-attack-isra/)

[NYer]

Hizballah: 'Ready To Attack Israel At Any Time'


http://rantburg.com/images/surprise.jpg

[Petronas]

Lebanon (Country threat level - 4): Lebanese authorities discovered a Katyusha rocket wired to a timer and two batteries near the western entrance of the Sabra Palestinian refugee camp -- located in southern Beirut -- on 2 August 2007. Bomb disposal experts safely defused the rocket, which was set to detonate. Officials stated that an office of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Beirut was the intended target. No group has claimed responsibility, and no further information is available.

http://www.asigroup.com/HOTSPOTS.asp

[Vancouver]

Remember the raid in Tripoli in which several Saudis were killed? The owner of the place is an "Australian-Lebanese".

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/fourth-man-charged-in-lebanon/2007/08/16/1186857683431.html

LEBANESE security sources say there is a fourth Australian-Lebanese citizen among a group of suspected Sunni Muslim extremists collectively charged with terrorism offences near the northern city of Tripoli.

The fourth man, Bassam al Sayed, was among several dozen suspects collectively charged on July 3 with murder, resisting security forces, creating a "terrorism gang" and possession of weapons and explosives. This week the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed the names of three current or former Sydney residents who are also on the list of those charged. They are a former taxi driver, Omar Hadba, a businessman, Ibrahim Sabouh and a boxer, Hussein Elomar.
...
Police in Tripoli said two of the Australians, Hadba and Sayed, were detained in late June after Hadba - who had been called in for questioning - broke under interrogation and revealed the hideout of an extremist cell in a city apartment building. He also led police to a lockup garage which was said to contain several hundred kilograms of weapons.

Ten people were killed in the raid on the hideout, including a Lebanese soldier, five Sunni militants (a Chechen, a Lebanese and three Saudis), and an off-duty policeman and his two daughters. The owner of the apartment was found to be Sayed. He was later arrested not far away.

[NYer]

Nasrallah: War was fought for Iran. (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3439057,00.html)

http://rantburg.com/Pix/Marionette.jpg

"We are ready to be torn apart, spliced into tiny pieces, so that Iran will remain exalted. For if Iran remains exalted, we too shall be exalted. I am a lowly soldier of the Imam Khamenei. Hizbullah youths acted on behalf of the Imam Khomeini, with the aid of Imam Hussein, and sent their blessings to the Iranian people," said Nasrallah in an interview with reporter Bijan Nobaveh on the day marking the start of the Second Lebanon War according to the Persian calendar.

[docj227]

if that is an accurate quote and translation, that debunks most of the bullshit that comes from those who blame israel for the war. also explains alot about who's pulling the strings in leb., syria, etc.

[Vancouver]

According to al-Jazeera (the official mouthpiece of Fatah al-Islam), the head (or figurehead) of Fatah al-Islam, Shakar al-'Abasi, is dead.
http://up-p.net/uploads/4b41c5596f.jpghttp://www.aleshteraki.net/images/news/Shaker_________________Al-Absi_____________Leader_____Of______Fath___Al_Esla m_0000000.jpg

[NYer]

Links between Hariri assassination and Zarqawi? (http://talismangate.blogspot.com/2007/10/zarqawi-killed-hariri.html)

Abul Ghadieh was a veteran of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. He was a dentist by profession. It seems that he relocated to Jordan in the 1980s where he married a Palestinian-Jordanian lady. He joined Zarqawi in the Herat camp in Afghanistan in early 2000, and was instrumental in building-up the Zarqawi network in Iraq. In many ways, there would have not been a Zarqawi had it not been for Abul Ghadieh.

This is the first time whereby Abul Ghadieh is being publicly linked to the Al-Qaeda cell that allegedly had some role in assassinating Hariri. This would mean that someone like Ahmed Abu Ades, who was shown in a video taking credit for the Hariri assassination on behalf of this cell, was not linked to second or third tier flunkies in the Zarqawi network, but was rather linked directly to Zarqawi’s right-hand man—Abu Ghadieh!

[Petronas]

Lebanon (Country threat level - 4): At approximately 0710 local time on 12 December 2007, a car bomb exploded on a busy street near the Baabda Municipality building -- located a short distance from the presidential palace -- in the Christian Beirut suburb of Baabda. The apparent target of the attack was Brig. Gen. Francois Hajj, a high-ranking Maronite Christian who led the army's major military campaign against Fatah al-Islam militants at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp from May-September 2007. Hajj was also the leading candidate to replace current army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman, who is the primary candidate to become the country's next president. Hajj was killed along with his driver and bodyguard as his SUV passed by a parked car laden with 77 lb/34 kg of TNT explosives. Authorities suspect that the car bomb was triggered by remote control. At least two other people, possibly bystanders, were killed in the attack, which is the latest in a series of bombings and political assassinations that have occurred in the greater Beirut area since May 2007.

Lebanese authorities quickly sealed off the area, and roadblocks remain in place. Additional security personnel have been deployed, although more than 6,000 army personnel were already deployed at various locations around Beirut in recent weeks to prevent a possible outbreak of violence related to the contentious presidential election. This most recent political assassination comes at a sensitive time in Lebanese politics, as rival political factions -- primarily the pro-Western majority and the Hizballah-led, Syrian-backed opposition -- have been unable to elect a new president to replace former President Emile Lahoud, whose term expired on 23 November. Rival camps have largely agreed on Suleiman as a consensus candidate. However, there are now issues regarding how to amend the country's constitution to allow him to serve (sitting high-ranking public servants are prohibited from becoming president) and power-sharing disputes that have forced several postponements of a parliamentary session to elect a new president (In Lebanon, the president is elected by the Parliament rather than by popular vote). Hajj's assassination comes just one day after the Parliament announced another postponement of the session to 17 December.

This political assassination differs from past incidents, which have primarily targeted anti-Syrian political figures. Hajj was a high-ranking army leader, and the Lebanese army is one of the only remaining respected institutions in the country. The army is viewed as being neutral in a country divided between pro-West and pro-Syrian forces. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Several pro-Western politicians have blamed forces in Damascus for being behind the attack. However, Hizballah -- which is heavily supported by Syria -- has condemned the attack and denied any responsibility. Additionally, Hizballah maintains a good relationship with the Lebanese army. There is speculation that other militants -- possibly those linked to the Fatah al-Islam group -- may be responsible for the assassination. As previously discussed in HOT SPOTS, the political and security situation in Lebanon, especially in Beirut, is unstable and could further deteriorate with little notice. This latest bombing could further deepen the country's political crisis and possibly motivate street demonstrations or incidents of unrest. Furthermore, additional bombings -- either large-scale political assassinations or small-scale bombings meant to incite panic -- are possible. Due to the fact that such incidents have occurred in crowded public places, travelers to Beirut should exercise caution and avoid areas located near government facilities. Travelers should also anticipate increased ground transportation delays and disruptions due to the heightened security presence, roadblocks and checkpoints that remain in place throughout the capital.

http://www.asigroup.com/HOTSPOTS.asp

[NYer]

North Korea supplying Hezbollah. (http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2007/12/north_korea_sup.php)

CRS, which provides independent analysis to Congress, discussed the purported North Korean aid to Hezbollah amid plans by the Bush administration to remove Pyongyang from the State Department list of terrorist sponsors. The report, first obtained by the Reuters news agency, cast doubts on claims that North Korea has ended support for groups deemed terrorists.

[Vancouver]

I hear that some grenades have exploded in the Ein Hilwe "Palestinian" "refugee" camp. Also, the body of a victim of torture and murder has been found in Ein Hilwe.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1198517294801&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Somebody claiming to represent Fatah al-Islam is claiming the explosions.

[Petronas]

Par for the course for the UN - when I was at the Israeli/Lebanese border last year I saw a huge Hizballah flag waving on a hilltop directly in front of a UNIFIL base less than a mile from Israel in an area where Hizballah was not supposed to be.

UN Forces Backed Down From Hizbullah Gun Bust
04/22/08, 10:51 AM

Hizbullah terrorists scared off UNIFIL armed forces last month after the armed international soldiers found a truck carrying arms and ammunition for the group.

According to Haaretz, which quotes an unnamed "source in Jerusalem," the UNIFIL troops were on patrol and pulled the truck over. When they approached the vehicle, armed Hizbullah terrorists exited and threatened them at gunpoint. The UNIFIL troops returned to their cars and went back to their base.

The March 31 incident, which undercuts confidence in the ability of international troops to prevent the activities of the terrorist group in the region, was kept secret at the time. It was mentioned in a semi-yearly report submitted to the UN Security Council by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Hizbullah is not allowed to enter the area in which the weapons shipment was found according to UN Security Council Resolution 1701. The incident constitutes a major violation of the resolution, which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert counts among Israel's great successes of the Second Lebanon War.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125942

[American_Jihad]

Lebanon's rival regional backers hail deal
21 May 2008

BEIRUT - Lebanon's rival leaders and their regional backers hailed a deal hammered out on Wednesday to end a long-running political crisis, saying they hoped it would pave the way for long-lasting peace in the troubled country.


"We hope this understanding will pave the way for a solution to the political crisis in Lebanon," said Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, whose country was for years the power broker in Lebanon and now backs the Hezbollah-led opposition.

The accord signed in Doha is the result of crisis talks which began after days of deadly sectarian fighting this month threatened to plunge Lebanon back into all-out civil war.

It paves the way for the election of army chief Michel Sleiman as president, the creation of a unity government in which the opposition has power of veto, and a ban on the use of weapons in any internal conflict.

Syria's main regional ally Iran, which is also a key backer of the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah, welcomed the agreement.

"The Islamic republic of Iran hopes that the Doha accord... will provide a blossoming and brilliant future for the Lebanese people," the ISNA news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini as saying.

Iran's regional rival and Sunni Muslim powerhouse Saudi Arabia echoed the sentiment.

"Saudi Arabia announces its support for the agreement between the Lebanese in Doha. We are very happy that this accord has been reached," its ambassador to Lebanon, Abdul Aziz Khoja, told AFP in Riyadh.

Lebanese parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, said the agreement marked a new chapter for the country.

"We have turned a new page which should start with a (national) reconciliation," he said. "Wounds are deep and we hope they will heal."

Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun said the deal struck in Doha marked "a happy moment for all the Lebanese".

"Congratulations to the Lebanese people, we did not fail them," he said. "They always pressed us to reach an agreement and we have done so."

Prime Minister Fuad Siniora called on the Qatari hosts of the talks to work to put relations between Lebanon and "sisterly Syria on the right track."

"There is no doubt that what happened should serve as a lesson to renounce violence and pledge not to resort to arms," he said, referring to the sectarian fighting earlier in May that killed 65 people.

"I feel sorry for those martyrs who fell in the wrong place and the wrong time, and my condolences go to those who suffered and are still in pain," he said. :add40:

"We should work to equip our security forces with modern equipment ... in order to protect the country and provide security," Siniora said, calling on Arab countries to help strengthen the Lebanese army.

Arab League chief Amr Mussa said the deal shows that Lebanon can only thrive on its tradition of consensus.

"We have proved that the historic Lebanese formula of "no victor and no vanquished' is the only formula that can lead us to safe shores," he said.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit, whose country backs the government, called for the deal to be faithfully implemented by all parties.

"The agreement ends a complicated crisis which could have destroyed Lebanon's stability had it not been for the wisdom of certain Lebanese politicians and the rapid Arab intervention," the official MENA news agency quoted Abul Gheit as saying.

"Egypt is particularly relieved... about the agreement of all Lebanese groups to no longer resort to weapons to resolve conflicts or achieve political gains," he said.

Jordan's State Minister for Information Nasser Judeh said the "historic" agreement would "enhance Lebanese national accord, peace, security and political stability."

"It should be translated into action on the ground as soon as possible to help Lebanon find a way out of the current political impasse," he said in a statement.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2008/May/middleeast_May534.xml&section=middleeast&col=

[Kamikaze]

Good news, until the army general is appointed as president and they fight again over his replacement, or until Israel decides that it's time for round 2.

By the way, is the mainstream media in the US ignoring what's happening in Lebanon or is it just me?

[American_Jihad]

U.S. warns of October security risk in Lebanon
10/6/08

BEIRUT – The U.S. embassy in Beirut has warned citizens of a security threat in Lebanon in the first half of October, linking the heightened risk to the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.
The embassy said in an Oct. 3 message posted on its website that it was reviewing its own security in light of the concern.

“The U.S. embassy is concerned about the potential for groups or individuals to exploit the end of the holy month of Ramadan to undertake violent actions targeting Americans,” the message said. “The period of highest concern is the first half of October,” it added.
Ramadan, whose dates are determined by the lunar calendar, ended last week.

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Hale raised worries over Islamist militancy in north Lebanon during talks with Lebanese leaders over the weekend, according to Lebanese sources who attended his meetings.

A U.S. diplomatic car was targeted by a bomb in January in an attack which killed three Beirut residents.

In the last two months the Lebanese army also been targeted twice by bombs. The attacks in the predominantly Sunni Muslim city of Tripoli in north Lebanon have killed 14 soldiers and eight civilians. Syria has also warned of growing Islamist militancy in the north.

The United States aims to strengthen Lebanon's army and on Monday signed agreements to provide $63 million in military aid, according to statements by the Lebanese army and U.S. embassy.

The latest aid, part of $410 million of military assistance committed by the United States since 2006, covers communications and ammunition and weapons supplies for the infantry, they said.

Lebanese Defence Minister Elias al-Murr and Mary Beth Long, assistant U.S. defence secretary for international affairs, signed the agreements during the first meeting of a joint defence committee in Beirut.

The United States has been a firm backer of Lebanese opponents of Hezbollah, an Iran- and Syria-backed movement which Washington lists as a terrorist group.

Hezbollah – a political and military group – and Washington's allies in Lebanon joined a national unity government in July, easing a deep political conflict.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20081006-0929-lebanon-usa-warning.html

[NYer]

Hariri panel self-destructs - Assad wins. (http://debka.com/headline.php?hid=6049)

DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report that, by setting the key witnesses, four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals, free, the pre-trial judge Daniel Fransen Wednesday, April 29, effectively scrapped the international tribunal's mission to pursue the murderers of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Their release "for lack of sufficient evidence" under strict security, as Fransen ruled, rewarded Assad for his extraordinary efforts to quash the international legal proceedings for fear of compromising his close circle.