Syria threatens Spanish UN soldiers in Lebanon

MADRID (AFP) — Syria's secret service has reportedly threatened Spanish soldiers in Lebanon in a bid to block the extradition of suspected arms dealer Monzer Al-Kassar to the United States.

The Spanish intelligence service, according to a memo cited by the newspaper El Mundo, fears that troops on UN deployment in south-east Lebanon could be targeted if the Spanish cabinet ratify a judicial verdict and send Kassar to the US.

General Assef Schawkat, chief of Syrian military intelligence, wrote to his opposite number in Spain: "If you think we are going to ignore the affront inflicted by north-American henchmen on our brother (Kassar), you don't really know us and [you] are no friends of the Syrian people."

Dated end-July, the note also refers to Schawkat delivering a thinly-veiled threat during a discussion with Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Around 1,100 Spanish soldiers serve in the UN interim force in Lebanon installed after the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Six Spanish soldiers were killed during a bombing there in June.

Syrian native Kassar, known colloquially as the "Prince of Marbella" where he has been based for the last decade, is wanted in the US on suspicion of arranging arms deals for leftist FARC rebels in Colombia.

State Department Statement on Lebanon

State Department

Press Statement
Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
November 23, 2007

Lebanon

Today, due to a boycott of Hizballah Members and their allies, Lebanon's Parliament once again failed in electing a new president for Lebanon. With the expiration of President Lahoud's term at midnight tonight, the Lebanese cabinet will temporarily assume executive powers and responsibilities until a new president is elected by Lebanon's Parliament. This is the procedure stipulated by the Lebanese constitution, and will ensure that the government is able to continue conducting its business without interruption. The United States Government commends Lebanon's armed forces and security services for their stated commitment to ensuring law and order during this interim period, and we urge all Lebanese political groups to do their part to maintain calm and promote security for Lebanon's citizens.

Discussions should continue aimed at electing, as quickly as possible and according to the constitution and to democratic principles, a new Lebanese president who will stand for Lebanon's independence and sovereignty and uphold international resolutions. The United States and its allies will not waver in our support for the people of Lebanon as they defend their freedom against all attempts at foreign interference and intimidation.

2007/1035

Released on November 23, 2007

Bush urges Lebanon vote without Syria influence

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Monday urged Lebanon to hold its already-delayed presidential election in line with its constitution and without allowing Syrian interference.

Bush, in a call to Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, reaffirmed support for his pro-Western government, the White House said after a parliamentary session to elect a new president was postponed for the third time.

The session was rescheduled from Monday to November 21 to give rival leaders more time to break a deadlock over a consensus candidate and end a crisis threatening the country's stability. The term of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud expires on November 23.

Electing a president is regarded as vital to resolving the year-old dispute that pits Siniora's government against the opposition led by the Syrian-backed Hezbollah.

The impasse has pushed Lebanon into its worst political crisis since the 1975-90 civil war and many Lebanese fear a failure to reach a deal could lead to two rival governments and bloodshed.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush had reiterated to Siniora his support for the anti-Syrian ruling coalition, saying "they should be able to elect a government free of any external interference, especially from Syria."

"He reconfirmed our position that elections must happen on time and according to Lebanon's constitution," Perino told reporters aboard Air Force One as Bush headed back to Washington after a long weekend at his Texas ranch.

The Bush administration has repeatedly accused Syria of meddling in Lebanon and of trying to destabilize its neighbor. Syria, which withdrew from Lebanon in 2005 after a 29-year military presence, denies it is interfering.

Bogged down in the Iraq war, Washington has long wanted Lebanon to serve as an example of emerging democracy in the region.

(Reporting by Caren Bohan; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by David Alexander and Bill Trott)

Lebanon takes control of refugee camp

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- The Lebanese military took control Sunday of a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon after fighting with Islamist militants who tried to flee, the government announced Sunday.
"We overcame all those terrorists who were willing to destroy our country," Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said in a televised address to the nation.
"This is an hour of pride and happiness."
A Lebanese Army source said 37 militants were killed and an unknown number were captured in clashes at the Nahr el-Bared camp outside Tripoli.
Two soldiers were killed in the fray, bringing to 155 the number of troops killed since May 20, when the standoff with the militants began.
"At dawn, militants of Fatah al-Islam attacked army positions in a desperate attempt to escape from Nahr el-Bared camp," a military statement said Sunday. "The Lebanese army confronted the militants and killed and captured a large number of them."
Political sources close to the military said in late June that as many as 40 fighters from the militant group may have still been in the camp's center. Government officials said the group has ties to the al Qaeda terrorist organization.
Local Arab news media reported Sunday that Fatah al-Islam leader Shaker al-Absi was among the militants who fled, but the army said they could not confirm that.
In the past, Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr has said he wants al-Absi "dead or alive."
On Saturday, Lebanese troops seized control of the house belonging to Abu Hureira -- al-Absi's deputy commander, Lebanese military officials said.
Events at the refugee camp have marked the country's worst internal violence since the end of Lebanon's civil war in 1990.
Sunday's operation came three days after the chief of U.S. forces in the Middle East, in a landmark move, landed in Lebanon for talks with the prime minister and senior military officers.
Adm. William Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, met with Siniora and Lebanese military chiefs to offer counterterrorism training for Lebanon's military, among other objectives, U.S. military officials told CNN.
The Bush administration has supplied the Lebanese army with ammunition, body armor and night-vision goggles during its three-month battle with Fatah al-Islam militants.

Source: CNN

High stakes - The bigger picture behind the urgent need to preserve Lebanon's democracy and independence

High stakes

The bigger picture behind the urgent need to preserve Lebanon's democracy and independence

William Harris

In the contemporary world it is fashionable to represent conflicts as involving various shades of gray among contending parties, with clear moral choices being problematic. In the current Lebanese crisis, however, the choice is clear – it is between day and night, between light and darkness.

Above all, Lebanon's future depends upon the survival and consolidation of its recently renewed democracy and independence. This requires agreement among political leaders on a new president committed to democracy and independence, implementation of the Lebanese state's rightful monopoly of force on all its territory, and total cooperation with the international community in the proceedings of the coming UN murder tribunal. The Syrian/Lebanese security apparatus that commanded Lebanon until 2005, an apparatus still headed by Presidents Bashar al-Assad and Emile Lahoud, remains the prime suspect in the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Until the culprits for this crime and a succession of plainly associated murders and attempted murders of Lebanese critics of the Syrian regime are apprehended, political murder will rule supreme and Lebanese democracy cannot be secured.

A more immediate priority involves the survival of the constitutional government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, product of May/June 2005 parliamentary elections that were the first free expression of the will of the Lebanese people since 1972. Siniora's government wishes to assert a right to national independence that is taken for granted in the case of every other country in the Arab world. This has made it the target of a vicious campaign of death and destruction coordinated by the ruthless ruling clique in Damascus. It is instructive to read in the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai al-Aam on July 11 of Syrian military intelligence chief Asef Shawkat, brother-in-law of Assad, defending the jihadist group Fatah al-Islam. Shawkat reportedly berated a Lebanese Shia deputy from parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri's Amal movement, remarking: "the story is far bigger than the affair of a faction fighting with the [Lebanese] army."

Indeed the story is bigger; the Syrian regime wishes to re-impose its hegemony over Lebanon, wiping-out Lebanese democracy and independence.
This aspiration was most recently expressed in the insolent July 10 declaration by the regime mouthpiece al-Thawra that solutions in Lebanon "go through Damascus." The free flow of weaponry and jihadist fanatics into Lebanon from Syria expresses the Syrian regime's contempt for Lebanese state sovereignty and Syria's determination to foment violence in and from Lebanon.

Syria's overriding concern is to subvert the UN murder tribunal by any means, whether through provoking enough chaos in the Levant to force the West to do a deal with it, or by producing anarchy or a government change in Lebanon that would derail Lebanese cooperation with the UN inquiry and tribunal. On April 24, in a discussion with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Assad threatened the UN Security Council over its looming approval of the tribunal under Chapter VII of the UN Charter in thuggish Mafioso terms – "instability would intensify," with "grave consequences that could not be contained within Lebanon." He told Ban Ki-moon how "the Syrian people hated the March 14 Movement," meaning the Lebanese parliamentary majority and Prime Minister Siniora – the sort of reference generally taken in Beirut as a death threat. Yet another murder – of March 14 parliamentary deputy Walid Eido – followed a few weeks later.

There can be no doubt that Lebanon's pluralist traditions face a savage enemy and an existential challenge. These traditions are worth defending by Lebanese and others. In the Arab world only Lebanon, with an unrivalled 143-year electoral and representative tradition dating back to the Ottoman autonomous province, has a serious history of a parliamentary role in government, political pluralism, and public freedoms. Lebanon's eccentric confessional democracy remains a flawed work in progress, riddled with imbalances, patron-client networks, and poor accountability, but it is by light years the most inclusive and participatory political system in the Arab world. Above all, Lebanon's reconciliation of representative government with its communal compartments is a precious counterpoint to the notion that autocracy is best political practice in the fractured Middle East.

Beyond the worthiness of Lebanese democracy, the Lebanese crisis poses the fundamental issue of stamping out political murder. The Syrian regime's apologists whine that the Hariri assassination – in fact the mass murder of more than twenty people and one event in a continuing chain of murders – is not a suitable matter for international intervention. But, even setting aside international security in the Levant and foreign – Syrian – interference in Lebanon, who else except the international community could pursue the criminals given that the Lebanese legal system has been terrorized and corrupted into impotence? No democracy and no pluralism can coexist with impunity for political murder. This is an international matter. Exemplary punishment for Hariri's assassins and their masters and accomplices at the hands of the international community will send a powerful global message. It would be an international disaster for the UN's first ever murder inquiry and court to become a fiasco.

William Harris is a professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand. His most recent book is The Levant: A Fractured Mosaic (Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2005), which won a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title Award. He is currently working on A History of Lebanon, 1640-2007 for Oxford University Press in New York.

Lebanese PM says Syria sending arms across border

PARIS - Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora accused Syria on Wednesday of
sending arms to Palestinian camps in his country and said he would raise the
issue with the Arab League.
Siniora was speaking the day after independent experts handed the U.N.
Security Council a damning report which said Lebanese forces were largely
incapable of preventing arms smuggling from Syria.
The Lebanese prime minister told reporters during a trip to France he had
not had time to read the report, but said it was clear Syria was sending
weapons to two camps.
"In recent weeks these camps have been reinforced with munitions, arms and
fighters," he said, adding that one of the outposts was controlled by the
Fateh al-Intifada group and another by the "Popular Front, General Command."
"Everyone knows that these groups are supported and armed by Syria," he
said, making similar allegations to those leveled earlier this month by the
U.N. Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen.
"This is something I will talk to the Arab League about," Siniora said.
The team of experts working for the United Nations said that during a
three-week stay in Lebanon they had not heard of any weapons being seized
along the border, despite widespread talk of illegal shipments.
"I haven't had a chance to read this report, but we will look at it today
and we will certainly take a position that is in the interests of Lebanon,"
Siniora said.
Lebanon has been mired for months in a political crisis that pits Siniora's
Western-backed government against opponents led by the pro-Syrian Shi'ite
Hezbollah and Amal factions.
In addition, recent fighting between the Lebanese army and al Qaeda-inspired
militants in north Lebanon has complicated the crisis and sparked the worst
outbreak of internal violence in the country since the end of its civil war
17 years ago.
France wants to host a meeting of Lebanon's various factions next month to
try to resolve the political deadlock. Siniora said only second-tier
officials would attend the meeting and warned against setting too high
expectations.
"I think we should be open minded and not box it in with specific
objectives," he said. -Reuters

Anti-Syrian MP killed in Beirut bombing blamed on Damascus

Anti-Syrian MP Walid Eido, his eldest son Khaled and eight other people were
killed on Wednesday in a bomb blast near his Beirut beach club that the
ruling majority in parliament blamed on Damascus.
Eido, 65, the Sunni chairman of parliament's defence committee, was a member
of the Future Movement of MP Saad Hariri, whose father and former premier
Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in a similar seafront blast more than two
years ago.
The attack in the Manara area of west Beirut, in which police said a
bomb-rigged car was detonated by remote control, was condemned by Washington
which backs the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, a Hariri ally.
"The United States deplores this latest attack in Beirut that led to the
death of a respected member of parliament, Walid Eido and his son," national
security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
Saad Hariri blamed Syria and urged the Arab League to "boycott the terrorist
regime" targeting his country. "It is the same fingers which killed Rafiq
Hariri," he said.
At the scene of the bombing, pieces of flesh and pools of blood stained the
ground as relief workers took the 11 people wounded to hospital and treated
passers-by for shock, an AFP correspondent on the scene said.
The powerful explosion hurled the body of one victim onto a nearby football
pitch.
Two footballers from the Nejmeh Club, one of Lebanon's top sides, were among
those killed, club official Assaad Siblini told AFP. The two were mowed down
as they left the pitch.
Windows shattered in homes and hotels within a radius of several hundred
metres (yards) from the blast. Troops cordoned off the area which has a
number of popular cafes and beaches, including the Lebanese army's beach
club.
People were seen rushing to the beaches and cafes, calling out the names of
missing relatives and friends.
Eido, a near-daily swimmer and card-player at the Sporting Club near the
scene, became the third member of Lebanon's parliamentary majority to be
killed in the past two years.
He and his entourage were in a convoy of cars and under heavy protection
when the attack took place, in the first political murder since industry
minister Pierre Gemayel was gunned down in November.
The latest killing came amid a deadly showdown in north Lebanon between the
army and Islamists in a Palestinian refugee camp. It follows a string of
bomb and grenade attacks that have now killed 12 people and wounded dozens
more.
Immediately after news broke of the fresh attack, dozens of angry youths
closed the road near Ido's home in the Verdun area of mainly Muslim west
Beirut by burning tyres.
Siniora, meanwhile, telephoned several Arab leaders to call for an urgent
meeting of Arab foreign ministers, a government official said.
Telecommunication Minister Marwan Hamadeh said the killing of Eido was part
of a "physical liquidation" campaign by Damascus that has now left the
anti-Syrian camp with a slim six-seat majority in parliament.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner condemned the murder as
an "odious and cowardly crime," adding that "those responsible must be
caught and punished."
France has invited leaders of all Lebanon's political groups for informal
talks in Paris later this month in an effort to heal a longstanding
political crisis in Beirut.
Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Ido's killing was a "cowardly
act."
Eido was president of the Beirut appeals court before becoming an active
member of Rafiq Hariri's parliamentary bloc in 2000. After Hariri's
assassination, Eido joined Saad Hariri.
Syria was forced to end 29 years of military domination of Lebanon in April
2005 after it was widely accused of the Hariri assassination, despite its
repeated denials.
Damascus continues to wield considerable clout in Lebanon, where a standoff
between the Syrian-backed opposition and the Western-backed government has
paralysed politics for seven months.
Meanwhile, two Lebanese soldiers were killed on Wednesday by sniper fire
from inside Nahr al-Bared camp, the site of the deadliest fighting in
decades that has ignited fears about wider civil strife.
The latest deaths brought to 130 the number of people killed, including 63
soldiers and 50 militants of Al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam, since
fighting broke out in the camp and nearby northern port city of Tripoli on
May 20.
About 180 more refugees escaped on Wednesday from Nahr al-Bared where 3,000
civilians are thought to remain stranded in increasingly desperate
conditions.
Members of Lebanon's ruling majority have pointed the finger at Syria over
the fighting, which briefly spread to the refugee camp of Ain al-Helweh in
south Lebanon, as well as for the Beirut bombings.

source: AFP