LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
May 25/2007

Bible Reading of the day
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 17,20-26. I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them."

Free Opinions
Destruction and deceit in North Lebanon.By Michael Young. May 25/07

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for May 25/05/07
Lebanon vows to crush Islamic militants. AP
Lebanon vows to protect refugees as fighting continues.Guardian Unlimited
Lebanon Fighting: A Kaleidoscope of Modern Middle East Conflict.World Politics Review
Security Council Rallies Behind Lebanese Government-Naharnet
Saniora Vows to Wipe Out Fatah al-Islam in Nahr al-Bared Camp-Naharnet
Lebanese Troops Kill Well-known Militant during House Raid-Naharnet
Murr Serves Ultimatum on Fatah Islam, Militants Vow to Fight-Naharnet
Bomb Hits Aley, 16 Wounded-Naharnet
Sporadic Shooting at Camp in Lebanon.Washington Post
The real battle for Lebanon will take place at the UN.USA Today
Lebanon PM says will not surrender to terrorism.Reuters
Seven wounded as bomb strikes resort town of Aley-Daily Star
Barry Rubin: Being nice to Syria will lead nowhere.Independent Media Review Analysis (IMRA)
Surrender or else, Lebanon tells militants.NEWS.com.au
Destruction and deceit in North Lebanon.Daily Star
Thousands flee brutal camp battle - but others stay behind-Daily Star
Amnesty report singles out US for criticism-Daily Star
Lebanese Army resumes battle against Fatah al-Islam-Daily Star
Qassem blames government for security breakdown-Daily Star
Geagea lays Nahr al-Bared crisis at Syria's feet-Daily Star
PLO backs army entry into Nahr al-Bared-Daily Star
Government launches new compensation mechanism-Daily Star
US offers military aid worth $60 million to ISF-Daily Star
Army bids farewell to fallen brothers-Daily Star
Order of Physicians boss kills plans to postpone elections-Daily Star
Foreign embassies urge nationals to tread carefully-Daily Star
Khiam hosts collective call for Israel to free detainees-Daily Star
Russia has second thoughts on resisting UN discussion about Hariri tribunal-Daily Star
Amnesty International's annual report on Lebanon-Daily Star
Amnesty International's annual report on Israel and the Occupied Territories-Daily Star

Destruction and deceit in North Lebanon
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 24, 2007
There are few pleasures these days as Lebanon descends into the kind of violence that Syria seems to manufacture so effortlessly. However, one of them is discovering how easy it was for a gaggle of pro-Syrian Lebanese operators to manipulate investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, before he wrote a much-discussed article recently implying that the Lebanese government was financing Islamist groups, including Fatah al-Islam.
In his article for The New Yorker, Hersh faithfully channeled what sources in Lebanon told him, lending legitimacy to statements he otherwise failed to prove. Most prominently, for being so specific, he wrote that "representatives of the Lebanese government" had supplied weapons and money to Fatah al-Islam. But Hersh's only evidence for this claim was a quote attributed to one Alistair Crooke, a former MI6 agent who is co-director of Conflicts Forum, an institution advocating dialogue with Islamist movements. Nor did Crooke have direct knowledge of what he was saying. In fact, he "was told" the weapons were offered to the group, "presumably to take on Hizbullah." The argument is now being picked up by media belonging to senior members of the Syrian regime to affirm that the Lebanese Army is fighting an Islamist group in the Nahr al-Bared camp that is effectively on the payroll of Saad Hariri.
Lately, we've had more ricochets from that story. Writing in The Independent on May 22, journalist Robert Fisk, who we might forget lives in Beirut, picked up on Hersh, citing him uncritically to again make the case that Hariri was financing Islamists. So we have Fisk quoting Hersh quoting Crooke quoting someone nameless in a throwaway comment making a serious charge. Yet not one of these somnolent luminaries has bothered to actually verify if the story is true, even as everything about the fighting in Nahr al-Bared virtually confirms it is not true. The lie about the government financing of Fatah al-Islam has been given legitimacy thanks to a spectacular blunder by the Hariri camp, in particular Bahiyya al-Hariri. A few months ago she helped resolve a crisis that had resulted from the presence of Islamists located in the Taamir district of Sidon, abutting the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, by paying compensation money to Jund al-Sham militants so they would leave the area. From the narrow perspective of Sidon, which Bahiyya al-Hariri represents in Parliament, this made sense. Taamir was a running sore in relations between the state and inhabitants of the area on the one side and the Islamists and camp residents on the other. However, instead of disbanding, a number of the militants went to Nahr al-Bared, according to Palestinian sources. There, they joined Fatah al-Islam. Now the Hariris look like they financed Islamists, when they were really only doing what they usually do when facing a problem: trying to buy it away.
The relationship between Fatah al-Islam and Syria is not absolutely clear. While the movement is undeniably doing Syria's bidding today and has received Syrian logistical assistance (after all, its militants who weren't inside Lebanon had to enter from somewhere), Fatah al-Islam may be operating in collaboration with, rather than as a direct extension of, Syria's security services. This gives Syria deniability. Shaker Absy, who is wanted by the Jordanian authorities for the killing of an American diplomat in Amman in 2003, fought in Iraq and was briefly arrested by the Syrians before being sent to Lebanon, according to two Palestinian officials. Fatah al-Islam's sources of funding are also difficult to establish. The group has been supplied with up-to-date weaponry and the means to distribute patronage. But it might be a mistake to assume the money is Syrian, even though Damascus can turn the tap to the group on and off.
Between the fighting in the North and the bombings in Beirut, Syria is sending a very plain message, one that the foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, and the ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, brazenly echoed on Monday. It is that passage of the Hariri tribunal under Chapter VII of the UN Charter will mean a Lebanon in flames. The threat is clear, and the Verdun bombing on Monday evening seemed partly destined to send a message to the Russians, whose cultural center is located at the blast scene. Both Russia and China are the weak links in any Security Council vote on the tribunal.
However, Syria wants more than merely to undermine the tribunal. It wants to have a decisive say in who becomes president of Lebanon at the end of summer. The bloodshed in the North as well as the bomb attacks have another destination: the United States, which has indicated that Syria would not be consulted on Emile Lahoud's replacement.
The Assad regime never reconciled itself with its forced withdrawal from Lebanon, and is now actively seeking to reimpose its hegemony over its neighbor through a network of allies and agents. A return of tens of thousands of Syrian soldiers may not be achievable in the short term, particularly as the main barrier to such a return would, this time, be an outraged Sunni community. This could have severe implications for President Bashar Assad at home. However, the Syrians often operate according to an obsolete template - that of Hafez al-Assad. While it may be easy for them to provoke conflict in Lebanon, as they did throughout the war years between 1975 and 1990, the Syrian leadership might not be able to resist the blowback this time around if new hostilities break out.
Another Syrian objective, and this one will be far easier to achieve, is to increase Lebanese antipathy for the Hariri tribunal. It won't take many more bombs for people to begin wondering whether passage of the tribunal by the UN is worth Lebanon's destruction. Perhaps the tribunal is not worth it, but the question that both the international community and the Arab states must ask, and convincingly answer, is whether Syria will agree to surrender Lebanon if the tribunal's statutes are watered down. Up to now, Assad has shown no willingness to consider this quid pro quo.
Those who insist that Syria must be "engaged" have thought very little about how to safeguard Lebanese sovereignty. Yet unless the Security Council, the Europeans, and the Arab states show that Syria will pay a heavy price for what it is doing in Lebanon, things will only get worse in the country. Every day, Assad feels more confident that he can prevail. And when prominent Western journalists so gullibly write what the Syrians want them to, there is no reason for him to feel any other way.
***Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.

Security Council Rallies Behind Lebanese Government
The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday rallied behind Premier Fouad Saniora's government in its battle against Fatah al-Islam militants but stressed the need to assist Palestinian refugees caught in the crossfire. The 15-member Council "condemned in the strongest possible terms the attacks by the so-called Fatah al-Islam gunmen on Lebanese security and armed forces in northern Lebanon, which constitute an unacceptable attack on Lebanon's stability, security and sovereignty."
In a non-binding statement read by U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad, who chairs the council this month, the 15 members also underscored the need "to protect and give assistance to the civilian population, notably the Palestinian refugees."Khalilzad also reiterated that the violence in northern Lebanon would not prevent the Council from voting soon on a draft resolution to set up the proposed international tribunal to try ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's suspected assassins.
In a related development, Qatar's U.N. Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser said he received the green light from the Council for Qatar to launch an eleventh-hour mediation to get rival Lebanese parties to agree on a national unity government and on the tribunal. "We (Qatar) are in contact with all the parties," he added, referring to the Saniora government and the Hizbullah-led opposition. The Qatari said he expected the Council to deliberate "early next week" on the draft put forward by the United States, Britain and France to set up the tribunal. The three powers acted at the request of the Saniora government and on the recommendation of U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon after the Lebanese parties could not agree on ratifying the agreement reached by the U.N. and the government to create the court.
"I believe in short order we will have an appropriate response to that (Saniora) request," Khalilzad said. Pressed as to when a council vote might take place, he replied: "days."In its statement, the Council members "reiterated their unequivocal condemnation of any attempt to destabilize Lebanon and underlined their readiness to continue to act in support of (Saniora's) legitimate and democratically elected government."(AFP-Naharnet) (AFP photo shows U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad) Beirut, 23 May 07, 22:38

Lebanese Troops Kill Well-known Militant during House Raid
Lebanese troops killed a militant from the extremist Fatah al-Islam during a house raid in the northern port city of Tripoli, police said.
They said Bilal Drakish, also known as Abu Jandal, was shot dead on Wednesday as he prepared to throw a grenade at a unit of security forces raiding an apartment in Tripoli's northern neighborhood of Tibanneh. Police said the security forces had been pursuing Drakish who tried to throw a hand grenade at them but was fatally shot before he could trigger it. State-run National News Agency said two passers-by were wounded in the exchange and were taken to hospital for treatment.
The incident came a day after another Fatah al-Islam militant -- wearing a suicide belt -- blew himself up in an apartment in Tripoli as security forces closed in on him. No one else was killed in the event Tuesday, which was the first case of a suicide bomber directly confronting security forces in Lebanon.
On Sunday, a residential compound on the city's Mitein Street was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting between troops and Fatah al-Islam.
Lebanese troops have been fighting members of the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah al-Islam in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared on the outskirts of Tripoli. More than 50 people have been killed in the battles.(AP-Naharnet) Beirut, 24 May 07, 09:19

Murr Serves Ultimatum on Fatah Islam, Militants Vow to Fight
Defense Minister Elias Murr has warned Fatah al-Islam militants holed up in the northern Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared to surrender or face an all-out assault. But fighters from the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah al-Islam extremist group vowed not to give up and to fight any Lebanese onslaught.
Storming Nahr al-Bared -- a densely built-up camp of narrow streets on the Mediterranean coast -- could mean rough urban fighting for Lebanese troops and further death and destruction for the thousands of civilians who remain inside. It could also have grave repercussions elsewhere across troubled Lebanon, sparking unrest among the country's estimated 400,000 Palestinian refugees. Already some of the other refugee camps in Lebanon, which are rife with armed groups, are seething with anger over the fighting. But the military appeared determined to uproot Fatah al-Islam after three days of heavy bombardment of the camp, sparked by an attack by the militants on Lebanese troops Sunday following a raid on its fighters in the nearby northern city of Tripoli. "Preparations are seriously under way to end the matter," Murr said in an interview Wednesday with Al-Arabiya television. "The army will not negotiate with a group of terrorists and criminals. Their fate is arrest, and if they resist the army, death." Members of Fatah al-Islam said they were ready to fight.
"We are not going to let those pigs defeat us," said one of a half-dozen fighters standing outside the group's office inside the camp. The fighter, who identified himself with the pseudonym Abu Jaafar, wore a belt hung with grenades. Another militant who said he was a deputy leader of the group said the fighters were willing to agree to a cease-fire if the military allowed them to remain in the camp. But the fighter, who gave his false name as Abu Hureira, warned the troops would "face a massacre" if they attempt to enter Nahr al-Bared. It is unclear how many Fatah al-Islam fighters are in the camp, but Abu Hureira said they number more than 500.
Around half of Nahr al-Bared's estimated 30,000 residents have fled since a halt in the fighting Tuesday night, some clutching babies and plastic bags full of clothes. They traveled on foot and in cars past burned-out shops on streets strewn with broken glass, garbage and dead rats. But thousands remain behind, either too ill to travel or unwilling to abandon their homes, and are now in danger of being caught in the crossfire.
Murr said 30 Lebanese soldiers were killed in the three days of fighting, along with as many as 60 militants, including fighters from Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia. But a top Fatah al-Islam leader said only 10 of his men were killed. U.N. relief officials said the bodies of at least 20 civilians were retrieved from inside the camp during the lull in fighting.(AP-Naharnet) Beirut, 24 May 07, 08:46

Saniora Vows to Wipe Out Fatah al-Islam in Nahr al-Bared Camp
Prime Minister Fouad Saniora on Thursday vowed his government would finish off extremist militants of Fatah al-Islam battling the Lebanese army in the northern Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared. "We will work to root out and strike at terrorism, but we will embrace and protect our brothers in the camps," Saniora said in a televised speech, insisting Lebanon has no quarrel with the estimated 400,000 Palestinian refugees who live in the country.
His address, on the occasion of the 7th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon, came a day after Defense Minister Elias Murr issued an ultimatum to Fatah al-Islam militants entrenched in Nahr al-Bared -- many of whom are believed to be Arabs from other countries -- to surrender or face a military assault.
Saniora said Fatah al-Islam was "a terrorist organization that claims to be Islamic and to defend Palestine" and was "attempting to ride on the suffering and the struggle of the Palestinian people." "We will put an end to the terrorist phenomenon without hesitation," he said.
"The Lebanese army was the victim of a terrorist organization. We will not surrender to armed terrorism; we will not surrender to the terrorists," he said. "The explosive attacks will not scare us," he said, a day after a third bomb blast in four days rocked Lebanon. "They will not scare us, just like the assassinations did not scare us," Saniora said, in reference to a series of murders in the last two years which have been widely blamed on Syria. "You are our brothers," Saniora told Palestinian refugees in his television address. "We share with you the bad times before the good ones."
Meanwhile, heavy gunfire could be heard Thursday inside Nahr al-Bared which is surrounded by Lebanese troops. It was not clear what sparked the shooting, as a truce appeared to be still holding since Tuesday afternoon. Half a dozen soldiers followed by an armored car and a light vehicle headed toward a forward army position at the camp's northern entrance.The army's first checkpoints are some 500 meters from the buildings on the edge of Nahr al-Bared. Militant positions begin farther down inside the sprawling maze of houses. Voice of Lebanon Radio Station, citing Palestinian sources, said 30 fighters have been killed since the gunbattles began Sunday. The sources said the bodies of the dead, which included one of the sons of Fatah al-Islam leader Shaker Absi, were secretly buried inside the camp.
In a related incident, a senior Lebanese military official on Thursday confirmed that troops sank two boats carrying Fatah al-Islam militants as they tried to flee Nahr al-Bared via the Mediterranean sea earlier this week. The official told Naharnet that all fighters on the boats were killed. He did not give the exact number of dead militants in the attack which took place on Tuesday afternoon.(Naharnet-AP-AFP) Beirut, 24 May 07, 12:17

France: International Community Wants Hariri's Assassins Punished
France said Thursday the international community is determined to set up an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, on his first trip since assuming office less than a week ago, told a Beirut news conference "France and the international community are determined to establish the tribunal to try the assassins."He flew in Thursday for a two-day trip billed by the foreign ministry as a re-affirmation of "French solidarity with Lebanon and its people during a critical period." His visit comes at a time when the country's army and a tiny Islamist militant group are facing off at a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the country after three days of fighting that killed at least 69 people. Kouchner is to meet Prime Minister Fouad Saniora, parliament speaker Nabih Berri and other officials. "The international community will never accept threats and terrorism, and we are determined to vote at the (UN) Security Council a resolution to establish the international tribunal," he told reporters. A draft put forward by the United States, France and Britain to set up the proposed court to hear the Hariri case is currently before the 15-member council. No date has yet been set for a vote. Hariri and 22 other people were killed by a massive bomb blast in February 2005, widely blamed on Syria which was then forced to end nearly 30 years of military and political domination of Lebanon. Damascus denied any involvement in the killing. The issue is one of the key political challenges that has faced Saniora's majority government for months, with the Syrian-backed opposition, led by Hizbullah, trying to overthrow the administration.(AFP-Naharnet) Beirut, 24 May 07, 17:26

The real battle for Lebanon will take place at the U.N.
By David Schenker
This past week, Lebanon witnessed its most intense internal violence since its 1975 civil war. Fighting between the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the al-Qaeda affiliate Fatah Islam, as well as three bomb attacks in Beirut, have taken a heavy toll, raising concerns about Lebanon's stability.
Like most of the tensions in Lebanese politics, this spate of violence is not primarily a domestic affair. Indeed, in addition to being populated with al-Qaeda fighters, Fatah Islam has close ties to Syria. The movement of emissaries between Fatah Islam and Damascus is well-documented; the Arab world's newspaper of record, Al Hayat, even reports that much of Fatah Islam's leadership is made up of Syrian officers.
Given the Syrian connection, the timing of the violence is no coincidence. Last week, the pro-West, pro-democracy, anti-Syrian Lebanese government led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora petitioned the U.N. Security Council to establish an international tribunal under Chapter 7 — meaning it can be militarily enforced — to prosecute the killers of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. A few days later, the United States, France and Britain formally proposed the resolution to the Security Council. Syrian officials are leading suspects in the 2005 murder, and Damascus virulently opposes the notion of a tribunal; should senior regime officials be implicated, it would almost certainly shake the foundations of the authoritarian regime. In this context, the strife in Lebanon appears to be a Syrian-orchestrated attempt to destabilize Lebanon and scuttle the international court.
Syrian President Bashar Assad knows Washington needs help on Iraq, and he's hoping to leverage this for a free hand in Lebanon and the end of the tribunal.
Even so, Washington has few illusions as to the unproductive role Syria is playing. The challenge for the Bush administration will be how to reconcile its priorities without sacrificing Lebanon. At present, administration support for Beirut vis-à-vis Damascus is solid. But even if the LAF manages to get a handle on Fatah Islam, ongoing Syrian contacts with other Sunni fundamentalist groups and with the Shiite militia/political party Hezbollah suggest that Syrian meddling will remain a problem.
Because of this dynamic, the real battle for Lebanon will not take place in Beirut but in New York, behind closed doors in the U.N. Security Council. Syria's strategy appears to be to kill the tribunal resolution via a Russian veto.
Countering this offensive will require heavy U.S. diplomatic lifting at the United Nations. Since 2005, Washington has closely coordinated its Lebanon/Syria policy with the Europeans, and France in particular. The council's debate on the tribunal will be the first real test for newly inaugurated French President Nicolas Sarkozy. U.S. diplomacy and coalition building will be critical — if not necessarily determinative — to passing the resolution.
The key to constraining counterproductive Syrian behavior and ensuring Lebanese sovereignty is seeing through the international tribunal, letting the chips fall where they may. Justice for Hariri is really justice for the Lebanese people and should not be traded as a card either to jump-start still hypothetical Israeli-Syrian peace talks or to rent Syrian assistance on Iraq. In 2005, nearly one of four Lebanese rallied in Beirut and forced an end to the 30-year-long Syrian military occupation. Nonetheless, Syrian ambitions remain undeterred. To consolidate the gains of 2005, the international tribunal is a must. Until there is a real cost for supporting terrorism and destabilizing Lebanon, Syria will continue to control its smaller, weaker neighbor and, through Lebanon, undermine U.S. interests in the region.
As this past week demonstrated, Lebanon's government is doing its part to protect Lebanese sovereignty. Now it is up to the United States and its allies on the U.N. Security Council to do theirs. David Schenker is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 2002-06, he was the Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestinian affairs adviser in the office of the secretary of Defense.
Posted at 12:15 AM/ET, May 24, 2007 in Foreign Affairs - Europe - Letters, Foreign Affairs - Middle East - Forum, Foreign policy general - Forum, Forum commentary, Law/Judiciary - Forum, Military issues - Forum, People - Forum, Politics, Government - Forum | Permalink
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Violence rages in Palestinian refugee camps:
Canadian support for UNRWA must not be part of the problem
For Immediate Release
24 May 2007
Ottawa, Canada - As the Lebanese government attempts to bring Palestinian terrorist and their foreign allies based in UN refugee camps under control, serious questions must be asked about the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) and its role in supporting and sustaining these armed gangs and their expensive infrastructures. For its part, the Canadian Government must investigate the way its own money and support for UNRWA have been misused to fuel extremism in the region. "Canada is one of the most active financial supporters of UNRWA. Since 2000, the Canadian International Development Agency has provided over $75 million to support the UN agency, ignoring serious concerns about terrorism and terrorist incitement in the camps, " said Naresh Raghubeer, Executive Director, Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD). "Now that Palestinian terrorists are again undermining Lebanon, as they have been doing with Israel, will Canada finally end its blind support for UNRWA?" UNRWA has 2,629 staff members in Lebanon who operate 12 refugee camps, including Nahr el-Bared where the current violence is taking place. Since the outbreak of fighting between the Lebanese army and Palestinian gangs on Sunday, over 79 have been killed, making it Lebanon's worst violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.
"UNRWA’s camps have been used for generations to indoctrinate hatred. UNRWA employs Palestinian terrorists from Fatah and Hamas, yet Canada, under both Liberal and now Conservative governments, has been silent," said Raghubeer.
CCD calls on the Harper government to impose an immediate moratorium on funding to UNRWA until an independent, Canadian-led forensic audit is completed and controls are implemented to assure Canadian taxpayers that (1) armed gangs are no longer operating within the camps, (2) members of terrorist groups are not receiving Canadian aid or employment, and (3) incitement to violence and teaching of hatred have ended.
"Prime Minister Harper has spoken both about the threat posed by terrorism and the need for accountability in spending taxpayers’ money, and has pledged to make these principles part of his 2007 budget," said Raghubeer. "If the Prime Minister is serious, CIDA's unconditional funding of UNRWA would be an excellent place to act on these commitments."
For more information, please contact:
Naresh Raghubeer
Executive Director, Canadian Coalition for Democracies
416-452-6957 Mobile