Army Tanks Ring Bekaa Pro-Syrian Palestinians, Jibreel Claims Taking 6 Soldiers Hostage
The army has laid a tank siege to the main bases of Syrian-backed Palestinian guerrilla factions in the Bekaa Valley, shouting demands through bullhorns for a prompt handover of the killers of a Lebanese military topographer shot dead two days ago.
The standoff effectively corroborated the report of U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen to the Security Council in New York Wednesday that Syria was persisting in interference in Lebanon's affairs, allowing Radical Palestinian guerrillas to cross the border with plenty of weapons to refugee camps in Lebanon.
The report asserted that there was no need for the resistance that Hizbullah uses as an alibi not to lay down arms because Israel had withdrawn from all occupied Lebanese land, rejecting Lebanon's long-belated claim of sovereignty over the Shabaa Farms enclave.
Some 1,000 troops in armored personnel carriers with tank support were deployed overnight around the strongholds of Ahmed Jibreel's PFLP-GC and Abu Moussa's Fatah-Uprising in Sultan Yacoub, Hilweh, Deir El Ashayer and Yanta, media reports said Thursday.
The deployed reinforcements belonged to the army's 8th commando brigade. A communiqué from the army command in Yarze said the military moves were taken to apprehend the killers of the army's civilian surveyor Mohammed Ismail, who was shot dead while on an assignment near Hilweh on Tuesday.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Wednesday evening that the army demanded through loudspeakers from the Palestinian guerrillas to evacuate the four Bekaa bases, but the NNA later withdrew the report.
One of the ringed PFLP-GC strongholds was a big base of underground tunnels, caves and foxholes at Lower Sultan Yacoub township, which prompted Jibreel to tell An Nahar from Damascus "I am taken aback by these developments although relations with the Lebanese army are well."
Jibreel said he held hour-long telephone talks with Premier Saniora about the surprise "siege of our position," asserting that he told the prime minister of Lebanon "there can't be a dialogue between us with a gun pointed to our head."
Jibreel claimed PFLP-GC is holding six Lebanese soldiers hostage after the army had arrested 3 of the group's activists. But the army command in Yarze issued an emphatic denial of the Jibreel claim Thursday.
The standoff effectively corroborated the report of U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen to the Security Council in New York Wednesday that Syria was persisting in interference in Lebanon's affairs, allowing Radical Palestinian guerrillas to cross the border with plenty of weapons to refugee camps in Lebanon.
The report asserted that there was no need for the resistance that Hizbullah uses as an alibi not to lay down arms because Israel had withdrawn from all occupied Lebanese land, rejecting Lebanon's long-belated claim of sovereignty over the Shabaa Farms enclave.
Some 1,000 troops in armored personnel carriers with tank support were deployed overnight around the strongholds of Ahmed Jibreel's PFLP-GC and Abu Moussa's Fatah-Uprising in Sultan Yacoub, Hilweh, Deir El Ashayer and Yanta, media reports said Thursday.
The deployed reinforcements belonged to the army's 8th commando brigade. A communiqué from the army command in Yarze said the military moves were taken to apprehend the killers of the army's civilian surveyor Mohammed Ismail, who was shot dead while on an assignment near Hilweh on Tuesday.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Wednesday evening that the army demanded through loudspeakers from the Palestinian guerrillas to evacuate the four Bekaa bases, but the NNA later withdrew the report.
One of the ringed PFLP-GC strongholds was a big base of underground tunnels, caves and foxholes at Lower Sultan Yacoub township, which prompted Jibreel to tell An Nahar from Damascus "I am taken aback by these developments although relations with the Lebanese army are well."
Jibreel said he held hour-long telephone talks with Premier Saniora about the surprise "siege of our position," asserting that he told the prime minister of Lebanon "there can't be a dialogue between us with a gun pointed to our head."
Jibreel claimed PFLP-GC is holding six Lebanese soldiers hostage after the army had arrested 3 of the group's activists. But the army command in Yarze issued an emphatic denial of the Jibreel claim Thursday.
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