September 25, 2008
HEKR JANIN: Syria has deployed military forces along its northern Lebanon border and Beirut officials now fear an incursion is imminent, according to a report in The Times.
Damascus has insisted its forces are involved in an anti-smuggling operation along the border, yet the Lebanese Government is braced for the first incursion since Syrian forces pulled out three years ago.
Beirut believes the unusual scale of the operation is connected to tensions between the two countries over recent sectarian clashes in northern Lebanon.
"People around here are worried. We don't know why the Syrians have arrived like this," said 18-year-old Ali, a farmer in the tiny hillside hamlet of Hekr Janin overlooking the border,told The Times.
Lebanese media report that 8000 to 10,000 Syrian special forces have taken up positions along some of the hills overlooking the Kabir river on the border.
The deployment comes after several months of clashes in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, pitting the majority Sunnis against the minority Syrian-aligned Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam.
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is an Alawite as are most of the chiefs in the Syrian security and military apparatus.
Sunnis populate much of northern Lebanon and most of them are supporters of the Future Movement, headed by Saad Hariri, the son and political heir of Rafik Hariri, whose 2005 assassination is widely blamed
on Syria.
Last month Mr Assad said he had warned his Lebanese counterpart, Michel Suleiman, of the "problem of extremism" - a reference to Islamic militants, who he said were responsible for destabilising northern Lebanon, The Times reported. He said that he had urged Mr Suleiman to dispatch Lebanese troops to confront the extremists.
Some Lebanese military sources say Syrian troop numbers have been exaggerated.
"The numbers are much less than is being reported. They are special forces and they are there to patrol the border and stop smuggling," a senior Lebanese army officer said.
Syria has only recently broken out of its international isolation, hosting President Nicolas Sarkozy in Damascus.
But the deployment along the sensitive border risks undermining its recent diplomatic efforts.
"It will be seen as antagonistic. I think this move is a miscalculation that can only do them harm," a European diplomat in Beirut told The Times.
HEKR JANIN: Syria has deployed military forces along its northern Lebanon border and Beirut officials now fear an incursion is imminent, according to a report in The Times.
Damascus has insisted its forces are involved in an anti-smuggling operation along the border, yet the Lebanese Government is braced for the first incursion since Syrian forces pulled out three years ago.
Beirut believes the unusual scale of the operation is connected to tensions between the two countries over recent sectarian clashes in northern Lebanon.
"People around here are worried. We don't know why the Syrians have arrived like this," said 18-year-old Ali, a farmer in the tiny hillside hamlet of Hekr Janin overlooking the border,told The Times.
Lebanese media report that 8000 to 10,000 Syrian special forces have taken up positions along some of the hills overlooking the Kabir river on the border.
The deployment comes after several months of clashes in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, pitting the majority Sunnis against the minority Syrian-aligned Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam.
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is an Alawite as are most of the chiefs in the Syrian security and military apparatus.
Sunnis populate much of northern Lebanon and most of them are supporters of the Future Movement, headed by Saad Hariri, the son and political heir of Rafik Hariri, whose 2005 assassination is widely blamed
on Syria.
Last month Mr Assad said he had warned his Lebanese counterpart, Michel Suleiman, of the "problem of extremism" - a reference to Islamic militants, who he said were responsible for destabilising northern Lebanon, The Times reported. He said that he had urged Mr Suleiman to dispatch Lebanese troops to confront the extremists.
Some Lebanese military sources say Syrian troop numbers have been exaggerated.
"The numbers are much less than is being reported. They are special forces and they are there to patrol the border and stop smuggling," a senior Lebanese army officer said.
Syria has only recently broken out of its international isolation, hosting President Nicolas Sarkozy in Damascus.
But the deployment along the sensitive border risks undermining its recent diplomatic efforts.
"It will be seen as antagonistic. I think this move is a miscalculation that can only do them harm," a European diplomat in Beirut told The Times.
Source: The Australian
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