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Troops shot on Israel-Lebanon border

The border has witnessed sporadic violence since the war of 2006 The Israeli army has shot two Lebanese soldiers on the border, hours after an Israeli was killed by a Lebanese army sniper, the Israeli military has said. An Israeli army spokeswoman said Israeli troops opened fire after noticing "suspicious movement". There is no word on their condition and Lebanon has not yet commented. The shooting came hours after the 31-year-old Israeli soldier was shot dead after his vehicle was hit by up to 10 shots fired from the Lebanese side. The cross-border violence is the most serious since 2010, when an Israeli officer was shot dead by a Lebanese army sniper, sparking clashes in which three Lebanese soldiers were killed.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Lebanon Worries That Housing Will Make Syrian Refugees Stay

The modest shelter housing some Syrian refugees here, a few hundred yards south of the border with Syria , hardly looks objectionable. Made of plywood walls on a concrete foundation of some 250 square feet, with one door, two windows and a corrugated zinc roof, the squat structure is called a “box shelter.” But Lebanon has banned box shelters, regarding them as a threat to this already fragile nation. In the eyes of the Lebanese, the box shelters, made by the Danish Refugee Council, look too permanent and could encourage the Syrians to stay. “The fear of permanence is very embedded in the Lebanese political psyche,” said Makram Malaeb, a manager in the Syrian refugee crisis unit at the Ministry of Social Affairs. “We had Palestinian refugees who were supposed to stay here for a month in 1948, and now they are a population of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Beirut seeks bids for LNG import facility

Lebanese Energy Minister Gebran Bassil said he was soliciting bids for a liquefied natural gas plant to lower the nation’s energy import bill. Bassil, the caretaker minister, launched the solicitation to cut energy costs by $2 billion per year, the Daily Star reported Saturday. “This is a strategic and important subject, and irrespective if we are a caretaker Cabinet, we should not stop pursuing such vital projects,” the minister was quoted as saying. Bassil said the savings would emerge because Lebanon would pay only for the natural gas from a new LNG facility and not the cost of building the facility itself. He said the deadline for bids for the LNG plant is Dec. 23. “We can sign the contracts in the third and fourth quarter of 2014,” the minister said. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati resigned in March because of differences between […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Amid growing violence, Lebanon presses on with Med gas auction

As Lebanon stands on the brink of a new spasm of sectarian bloodletting, Energy Minister Gebran Bassil says he plans to go ahead with moves to launch exploration of offshore gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean on Jan. 10. That’s when the Energy Ministry has scheduled an auction in which some 46 international oil companies selected in April will bid to exploration rights on half a dozen offshore blocks, the first step toward exploiting what could be Lebanon’s last chance at finding economic salvation, and possibly political harmony, since independence from France in 1943. But with Lebanon’s fractious religious sects at each other’s throats again, the victims of regional power rivalries as much as their own historical feuding, Lebanon’s prospects of an energy bonanza seem to be slipping away. Bassil told an oil and gas conference in Beirut Wednesday that he was committed […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Major Hezbollah Figure, Tied to Syrian War, Is Assassinated Near Beirut

Hassane Laqees was a major player in the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah from its inception three decades ago to its current intervention in Syria’s civil war. Over the years, he survived several assassination attempts. But as he parked his car just after midnight on Wednesday near an apartment south of Beirut that he sometimes used, he was shot dead at close range. It was a professional-style killing that signaled a new escalation in the attacks Hezbollah has faced after plunging into the turmoil in neighboring Syria on the side of President Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Laqees’s death was a significant loss for Hezbollah, analysts said, and any of the group’s primary enemies — Israel, the Syrian insurgents the group is battling, or their backers, such as Saudi Arabia or Lebanese Sunni militants — could have had reason to want him dead. Mr. Laqees was variously described […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Hezbollah commander killed outside home in Lebanon

A senior commander for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was gunned down Wednesday outside his home in southern Beirut, security officials said. The Iranian-backed group blamed its arch-enemy Israel for the killing, something officials there quickly denied. Hezbollah immediately announced the death of Hassan al-Laqis and described him as one of the founding members of the group, suggesting he was a high-level commander close to the Shiite party’s leadership. His shooting death comes as Lebanon faces increasing sectarian violence pouring over from the civil war in neighboring Syria, where Hezbollah forces fight alongside President Bashar Assad’s troops, angering the mainly Sunni rebels seeking to oust him. Hezbollah strongholds have been the target of car bomb attacks and suicide bombers attacked the Iranian Embassy in Beirut last month, killing 23 people. Sunni militant groups have claimed responsibility for those attacks, calling it retaliation for Hezbollah’s […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Tents, refugees crowd Lebanese valley – just don’t call it a camp

White tents with "The U.N. Refugee Agency" written on them flap in the wind outside the Lebanese mountain town of Arsal. Children run past latrines and water points. In all respects, it is a refugee camp, but you must not call it that, say officials. The site is home to about 350 people who have fled the civil war in neighboring Syria – the first officially U.N.-run plot set up for displaced Syrians in Lebanon, complete with running water, toilets and other services. But in a sign of the extreme sensitivities over refugees in the Mediterranean state, the authorities are doing all they can to play down any suggestion it is a settled facility for long-term residents. "It’s not a camp, it’s a temporary transit site," said one aid worker showing journalists round the site on Friday. Countries across the region have grown increasingly concerned […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Tents, refugees crowd Lebanese valley – just don't call it a camp

White tents with "The U.N. Refugee Agency" written on them flap in the wind outside the Lebanese mountain town of Arsal. Children run past latrines and water points. In all respects, it is a refugee camp, but you must not call it that, say officials. The site is home to about 350 people who have fled the civil war in neighboring Syria – the first officially U.N.-run plot set up for displaced Syrians in Lebanon, complete with running water, toilets and other services. But in a sign of the extreme sensitivities over refugees in the Mediterranean state, the authorities are doing all they can to play down any suggestion it is a settled facility for long-term residents. "It’s not a camp, it’s a temporary transit site," said one aid worker showing journalists round the site on Friday. Countries across the region have grown increasingly concerned […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Hezbollah calls for calm after Iranian embassy bombing

A Hezbollah leader appealed for calm on Wednesday and an easing of sectarian tensions in Lebanon, a day after twin suicide bombings struck the Iranian embassy in Beirut. "The solution to this confrontation begins politically," the Shi’ite Muslim group’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said on Lebanese radio, calling for unity. "Then there are security and military steps by the (Lebanese) authorities … in addition to attempts to calm the arena and reduce the transmission of sectarian poisons." He did not specify what security and military steps were needed. The remarks by Qassem, the most senior Hezbollah official to speak publicly about Tuesday’s bombings, suggested a restrained response from Hezbollah, which is funded by Iran and has sent fighters to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad. Hezbollah’s military role in Syria has helped to inflame sectarian tension there and in Lebanon. Many Lebanese Sunnis back the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Beirut Bombs Strike at Iran as Assad’s Ally

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A double bombing struck the Iranian Embassy compound in Beirut on Tuesday, in the deadliest assault on Iran’s interests since it emerged as the most forceful backer of the Syrian government against an armed insurgency. The frontal attack struck a symbol of the country’s powerful influence in Lebanon and neighboring Syria. The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an offshoot of Al Qaeda that operates in Lebanon, claimed responsibility for the bombings, which killed at least 23 people, including an Iranian diplomat. Syria, Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant organization, pointed fingers at Israel and Saudi Arabia, and officials said it was unclear who had carried out the attack. Regardless, it was quickly seen as retaliation against Iran and Hezbollah, Iran’s ally, for supporting the Syrian government. The double bombing highlighted the risks and costs that Iran faces over Syria, which some analysts have called Iran’s Vietnam. Others say […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple