Border fighting after Mehlis rejects Syria offer
Israeli troops killed at least three Hizbullah gunmen on Monday during clashes near the Lebanese border in which one Israeli was also killed, Israeli and Lebanese security sources said. "Three or four" guerrillas died after storming the border village of Ghajar, exchanging fire with the Israeli garrison there, according to Israeli security sources.
Earlier, the Israeli rescue service ZAKA said Israeli troops had killed four gunmen. An Israeli was also killed during the clash, ZAKA added.
A Hizbullah official confirmed that the fighters in the south had fired mortars and rockets at Israeli troops in the disputed border area. Israeli forces retaliated by bombing several areas on the Lebanese side of the border while the fighters fired salvoes of mortars and rockets, witnesses said, adding they counted more than 250 explosions in the area.
The witnesses said an Israeli military post in the Abbassiyeh area on the edge of the Shebaa Farms border area was set ablaze after fighters firing rockets, mortars and machine guns attacked a string of positions.
A Hizbullah source said three Israeli military vehicles at the post were on fire.
Scores of Hizbullah fighters were seen in several villages and towns during the fighting.
Witnesses added that at 4.01 pm Israeli helicopters sprayed the Shebaa-Kfar Shouba villages with heavy shelling, as well as firing shots into the Al-Mari valley outside the town of Ain Arab.
Israeli jets fired missiles on three suspected Hizbullah positions, one on the outskirts of Ghajar and two some distance away - south of the village of Khiam, and southeast of the port city of Tyre.
Lebanese police said fierce exchanges that erupted around 3pm continued to rage on as The Daily Star went to press.
The clashes come on the eve of Lebanon's Independence Day and as tension kicked up against Syria in the matter of its cooperation with the UN probe team into the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri.
Chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis on Monday rejected a proposal from Damascus to use offices in the Golan Heights to question Syrian officials about their role in the murder, Lebanese sources said.
With the clock ticking for Syria to fully cooperate with the inquiry or face further action, Mehlis and Syria were contemplating conducting the interviews in a "neutral country", the political sources said.
"Mehlis no longer insists on Lebanon as a venue but he has turned down the idea of the
Golan," one political source said. "Ideas are floating around over a neutral country, like Germany, Switzerland or Cyprus, but there is no agreement yet."
The political source said the investigators, who asked Lebanese President Emile Lahoud more than 200 questions during their last meeting , might request another meeting with the president soon.
Syria's UN ambassador sharply criticized Mehlis, saying that his insistence on holding the questioning of six Syrian officials in Beirut was a "provocation for those officials and would stir sensitivities" between Syrians and Lebanese.
In an interview with the London-based Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Faysal Mekdad's remarks suggested Syria was not about to back down in its deadlock with Mehlis' request. Mekdad said: "The main obstacle facing the investigation is not an investigation location. The main obstacle is the extent of credibility of the investigation."
Speaking to The Daily Star in New York, Mekdad's advisor said the Syrians had yet to receive Mehlis' rejection of the Golan Heights proposal.
Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora Monday took a hardline stance against Damascus, saying Syria has to learn to treat Lebanon as an independent state. "The Syrians must get used to dealing with Lebanon as an independent state, which does no harm to Syria," he said.
"The Lebanese must also be persuaded that they live in an independent country which is free to take its own decisions," said Siniora.
Syrian President Bashar Assad had sent a congratulatory message to Lahoud for the 62nd anniversary of Lebanon's independence, Syria's state news agency SANA reported.
The message underlined "Syria's commitment to brotherly relations between the two countries in keeping with the wishes of the people of Syria and Lebanon and their long historical and cultural links".
Siniora also Monday received a message from Syrian Prime Minister Naji Otari on the unresolved border issues, a Lebanese official said, without giving details. Earlier, leading opposition member MP Walid Jumblatt had accused the Syrian regime of "subverting Leb-anon's civil peace."
In an interview published by Al Mustaqbal newspaper, Jumblatt also said he had full trust in Mehlis, effectively rejecting Hizbullah's outcries that the German prosecutor "is not a God."
Jumblatt added: "Lebanon shall not be used as venue to derail the Hariri investigation at a time the Assad regime is making an assortment of concessions to avoid getting the accused Syrian officers behind bars. Lebanon shall not accept being rolled 30 years backward to civil warfare."
Taking an apparent jab at Hizbullah, Jumblatt said "arms do not provide protection for anyone. Protection is provided only by dialogue with the resistance and by national consensus backing this protection."
Jumblatt said Lebanon's border with Syria has to be defined and Syria must be formally asked to confirm that the Shebaa farms are Lebanese. "Once the Shebaa farms are regained and prisoners are returned from Israeli jails, then the 1949 armistice agreement should govern affairs between Lebanon and Israel." - Agencies, Naharnet
Earlier, the Israeli rescue service ZAKA said Israeli troops had killed four gunmen. An Israeli was also killed during the clash, ZAKA added.
A Hizbullah official confirmed that the fighters in the south had fired mortars and rockets at Israeli troops in the disputed border area. Israeli forces retaliated by bombing several areas on the Lebanese side of the border while the fighters fired salvoes of mortars and rockets, witnesses said, adding they counted more than 250 explosions in the area.
The witnesses said an Israeli military post in the Abbassiyeh area on the edge of the Shebaa Farms border area was set ablaze after fighters firing rockets, mortars and machine guns attacked a string of positions.
A Hizbullah source said three Israeli military vehicles at the post were on fire.
Scores of Hizbullah fighters were seen in several villages and towns during the fighting.
Witnesses added that at 4.01 pm Israeli helicopters sprayed the Shebaa-Kfar Shouba villages with heavy shelling, as well as firing shots into the Al-Mari valley outside the town of Ain Arab.
Israeli jets fired missiles on three suspected Hizbullah positions, one on the outskirts of Ghajar and two some distance away - south of the village of Khiam, and southeast of the port city of Tyre.
Lebanese police said fierce exchanges that erupted around 3pm continued to rage on as The Daily Star went to press.
The clashes come on the eve of Lebanon's Independence Day and as tension kicked up against Syria in the matter of its cooperation with the UN probe team into the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri.
Chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis on Monday rejected a proposal from Damascus to use offices in the Golan Heights to question Syrian officials about their role in the murder, Lebanese sources said.
With the clock ticking for Syria to fully cooperate with the inquiry or face further action, Mehlis and Syria were contemplating conducting the interviews in a "neutral country", the political sources said.
"Mehlis no longer insists on Lebanon as a venue but he has turned down the idea of the
Golan," one political source said. "Ideas are floating around over a neutral country, like Germany, Switzerland or Cyprus, but there is no agreement yet."
The political source said the investigators, who asked Lebanese President Emile Lahoud more than 200 questions during their last meeting , might request another meeting with the president soon.
Syria's UN ambassador sharply criticized Mehlis, saying that his insistence on holding the questioning of six Syrian officials in Beirut was a "provocation for those officials and would stir sensitivities" between Syrians and Lebanese.
In an interview with the London-based Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Faysal Mekdad's remarks suggested Syria was not about to back down in its deadlock with Mehlis' request. Mekdad said: "The main obstacle facing the investigation is not an investigation location. The main obstacle is the extent of credibility of the investigation."
Speaking to The Daily Star in New York, Mekdad's advisor said the Syrians had yet to receive Mehlis' rejection of the Golan Heights proposal.
Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora Monday took a hardline stance against Damascus, saying Syria has to learn to treat Lebanon as an independent state. "The Syrians must get used to dealing with Lebanon as an independent state, which does no harm to Syria," he said.
"The Lebanese must also be persuaded that they live in an independent country which is free to take its own decisions," said Siniora.
Syrian President Bashar Assad had sent a congratulatory message to Lahoud for the 62nd anniversary of Lebanon's independence, Syria's state news agency SANA reported.
The message underlined "Syria's commitment to brotherly relations between the two countries in keeping with the wishes of the people of Syria and Lebanon and their long historical and cultural links".
Siniora also Monday received a message from Syrian Prime Minister Naji Otari on the unresolved border issues, a Lebanese official said, without giving details. Earlier, leading opposition member MP Walid Jumblatt had accused the Syrian regime of "subverting Leb-anon's civil peace."
In an interview published by Al Mustaqbal newspaper, Jumblatt also said he had full trust in Mehlis, effectively rejecting Hizbullah's outcries that the German prosecutor "is not a God."
Jumblatt added: "Lebanon shall not be used as venue to derail the Hariri investigation at a time the Assad regime is making an assortment of concessions to avoid getting the accused Syrian officers behind bars. Lebanon shall not accept being rolled 30 years backward to civil warfare."
Taking an apparent jab at Hizbullah, Jumblatt said "arms do not provide protection for anyone. Protection is provided only by dialogue with the resistance and by national consensus backing this protection."
Jumblatt said Lebanon's border with Syria has to be defined and Syria must be formally asked to confirm that the Shebaa farms are Lebanese. "Once the Shebaa farms are regained and prisoners are returned from Israeli jails, then the 1949 armistice agreement should govern affairs between Lebanon and Israel." - Agencies, Naharnet
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