BEIRUT (AFP) – Firemen battled a forest fire in Lebanon on Tuesday, amid exploding cluster bombs and the danger of mines left over from the country’s 1975-1990 civil war, a civil defence official told AFP.  Flames swept near the summer resort town of Aley, east of Beirut, after breaking out overnight in the mountainous region of […]

By Jessica Naimeh, BEIRUT: Parents of Lebanese held in Syrian prisons went once again to the streets on Monday morning protesting against the detention in Syria of their relatives. The demonstration took an unfortunate turn of events as the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) violently forced the protesters to move away as they were trying to intercept Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem’s convoy to the presidential palace in Baabda. The protest was organized with the help of the civil society representatives, human-rights associations and local and international NGOs. The groups have held similar demonstrations in the past, but this time, the protest was called to coincide with Moallem’s visit to Lebanon. 

"We, as civil society organizations, want to confirm the existence of Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons," said Ghazi Aad, founder of Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE), an NGO which has longed worked to uncover the fate of Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons.  Parents and relatives of Lebanese citizens who disappeared between 1975 and 2005 gathered around 10:30 a.m. next to the presidential palace in Baabda, where Moallem was expected to arrive.  Many protestors held pictures of their detained or lost relatives as well as banners with slogans written in Arabic such as "no [diplomatic] relations before the return [of the Lebanese held in Syrian prisons]" or "not only are there [prisoners] in Israel, but in Syria as well."  As Moallem’s convoy was about to reach the presidential palace, demonstrators tried to block the road and were aggressively pushed and beaten up by LAF forces. Some demonstrators suffered wounds as a result.  In a news conference after his parliamentary bloc’s meeting on Monday, Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun said clashes between demonstrators and the LAF "were truly unfortunate," adding that the new government would "double efforts" to uncover the fate of detainees in Syrian prisons issue as "the fate of these missing people could not be ignored."  According to a researcher with Human Rights Watch, Nadim Houri, who took part in Monday’s protest, the demonstrators were "violently pushed by the LAF who used the bottoms of their rifles" to move the crowd away. He said that none of the protesters was armed, so there was "no need to resort to such kind of violence." Houri told The Daily Star that mothers of detainees were violently pushed in the process, saying that the "LAF ought to adopt strict guidelines that ban the use of violence to disperse demonstrators." Meanwhile, Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun said after a meeting of his Reform and Change parliamentary bloc on Monday that a Lebanese minister of state should be assigned the duty of following up on the issue of Lebanese detainees in Syria.

by Rouba Kabbara, BEIRUT (AFP) – Visiting Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Monday that Damascus was keen to open a new chapter in its relations with Lebbanon and to delineate the border between both countries.  "Our relations today are on an equal footing," Muallem told a press conference after meeting with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman on the first such visit by a high-ranking Syrian official in more than three years. "There is a new consensus president (in Lebanon) who has trustworthy ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and this can help resolve a lot of outstanding issues," he added. Lebanon and Syria said earlier this month that they had agreed to establish diplomatic relations and planned to open embassies in both capitals for the first time since independence from French colonial rule more than 60 years ago. Muallem during his hours-long visit handed an invitation to Sleiman from his Syrian counterpart to travel to Damascus, a trip the Lebanese press said would take place within a week or 10 days. The two men also discussed the issue of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, the delineation of the border between both countries and the fate of hundreds of Lebanese who vanished during Syria’s rule in Lebanon. "There is nothing to prevent the demarcation of the borders but we must take into account the fact that many Syrian and Lebanese villages are intertwined and whether this would harm residents," Muallem said. "Still, if we must delineate the border, we are ready." He added that placing the disputed Shebaa Farms in southern Lebanon under UN administration would in no way signify an end to Israel’s occupation of that area. The Shebaa Farms, a mountainous sliver of land rich in water resources measuring 25 square kilometres (10 square miles), are located at the junction of southeast Lebanon, southwest Syria and northern Israel. Israel seized the Farms from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war when it captured the neighbouring Golan Heights which it later annexed. Ever since, the Farms have been caught in a tug-of-war over ownership. Lebanon claims them, with the backing of Damascus, while Israel says they are part of Syria. On the missing Lebanese, Muallem said a committee set up to deal with the issue was advancing in its work but more time was needed before a final resolution. "Those who have waited more than 30 years since the start of the (Lebanese) civil war can wait another few weeks," he said, referring to families of the disappeared and rights groups pressing for answers about their fate. Families of the missing and supporters organised a protest along the road leading from Beirut airport to the presidential palace to coincide with the Syrian minister’s visit.

AIN EL-HELWEH, Lebanon (AFP) – Three Palestinians have been killed after an argument between rival factions in a refugee camp in south Lebanon turned violent, a Palestinian official said on Sunday. The fighting broke out late on Saturday in Ain el-Helweh camp, the largest in Lebanon, between Islamist group Jund al-Sham and a joint force of Palestinian factions which polices the camp. Those shot dead were Walid Sallum, an Islamist member of a committee formed to resolve differences between rival factions, a Jund al-Sham leader, Shehade Jawhar, and Abed Jawali, a member of the same group. Jawhar, who was wanted in Lebanon for murder and who had fought in Iraq, died on Sunday from gunshot wounds, the Palestinian official told AFP. The funerals of the three men took place under heavy Lebanese army security in Taamir, a district adjoining the camp where tensions remained high but efforts were under way to prevent a further outbreak of violence. The factional force tasked with security is dominated by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, of which Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement is a principal member. "All the parties are committed to preventing the camp from sliding into violence," the force’s head, Munir Maqdah, told AFP. Last year, more than 400 people were killed in a battle last summer in the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon before the Lebanese army expelled Islamists holed up in the camp. Ain el-Helweh, near the southern port city of Sidon, has in recent months become the theatre of clashes between Fatah and Jund al-Sham, a Sunni group comprising mainly Lebanese without a clear hierarchy. Members of extremist groups believed to have links with Al-Qaeda have settled in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, especially in Ain el-Helweh, which has a population of more than 45,000. The camps are outside the control of Lebanese authorities, with Palestinian factions in charge of security.

(AFP) – Israeli security officials warned on Thursday that Lebanese murderer Samir Kantar, who was freed in a prisoner swap after nearly three decades behind bars, should now fear for his own life.  "Every terrorist who committed an act of terror against Israel, especially someone like Kantar, who killed a little child and two other people, is a target," one of the officials told AFP. "If there is a chance for Israel to close the file on Kantar, Israel won’t hesitate," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity. Kantar, who turns 46 next week, was just 17 when he was sentenced to five life terms for a 1979 triple murder in one of the most notorious attacks in Israeli history. He was convicted of killing a police officer, a civilian and a four-year-old girl, whose skull he was accused of crushing with his rifle butt, in a raid in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. Kantar, the longest-serving Arab prisoner in Israel, was freed on Wednesday along with four Hezbollah fighters captured in the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite guerrilla group. Another security official said Kantar "has become a target for killing." "Now that he is out of jail, we have no obligation towards Kantar, a loathsome murderer whose accounts will be settled in the end," the unnamed official told the top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

AABEY, Lebanon (AFP) – Samir Kantar said on Thursday he had no regrets over the triple murder three decades ago that put him behind bars. I haven’t for even one day regretted what I did," he told AFP as he arrived at his family home in the Druze village of Aabey, southeast of Beirut, where he was given a hero’s welcome. "On the contrary I remain committed to my political convictions." Kantar, who turns 46 on July 22, was just 17 when he was sentenced to five life terms for a 1979 triple murder in one of the most notorious attacks in Israeli history. I feel enormous joy because I have returned to the ranks of the resistance and to my family," he said with defiance, dressed in a Hezbollah  military uniform. People showered Kantar with rice and flower petals as he neared his humble home, where two men sacrificed a lamb in his honour. "A 16-year-old is different to a 46-year-old but his facial expressions and his smile are the same," his step-mother Siham Kantar, 71, told AFP. Druze leaders Walid Jumblatt and Talal Arslan as well as Labour Minister Mohamed Fneish, a member of Hezbollah, took part in the ceremonies in Aabey, lauding Kantar as a hero of the resistance. He was released by Israel along with four Hezbollah fighters on Wednesday in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers captured in a deadly cross-border raid by the Shiite guerrilla group two years ago. Funerals were held for the two soldiers on Thursday. Their capture sparked a 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel in which more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and over 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed. "We are very happy on this beautiful day, this is a victory for Lebanon and the national resistance," said Yusra Khaddaj, 39, as she stood with her three young daughters on the road leading to Aabey. "Samir Kantar is the son of all the Lebanese," she added. One banner along the road leading to Aabey read: "From Palestine, to Iraq to Lebanon, the resistance is victorious." Israel on Wednesday also handed over the remains of 199 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters killed in recent years. Hundred of supporters threw rose petals and rice and some cheered as four tractor-trailers carrying the bodies arrived in Beirut from the border town of Naqura where Wednesday’s swap took place. The mothers of some of the Palestinian fighters killed in battles with Israeli troops during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war wept and tried to touch the coffins draped in Lebanese or Palestinian flags.  Other family members carried pictures of their missing sons, as the bodies of the fallen fighters were unloaded from the vehicles into a schoolyard where a communal prayer was to be held for them.  Hezbollah has dubbed the swap "the Radwan operation" after the alias used by notorious Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughnieh, who was killed in a bombing in Syria in February blamed on Israel.  Kantar visited Mughnieh’s tomb in Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut before heading to his village.  His release and return to a jubilant hero’s welcome in Lebanon drew condemnation in Israel, where security officials warned he was now a target for killing.  "Every terrorist who committed an act of terror against Israel, especially someone like Kantar, who killed a little child and two other people, is a target," one official told AFP.

BEIRUT Middle east online – Lebanon’s new telecommunications minister on Thursday accused Israel of bombarding Lebanese people with threatening phone calls, a day after a prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbollah.  "Hundreds of people throughout Lebanon received threatening phone calls on their landlines from Israel," Gibran Bassil said.  "The phone would ring, the person would answer and they would hear a message saying, ‘This is from the state of Israel. Abandon Hezbollah or there will be another war, like there was in 2006,’" he said.  Bassil, a member of the Free Patriotic Movement, the main Christian party in the opposition, said he has written a letter of protest to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.  "We consider this to be a clear violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701," Bassil said, referring to the resolution which ended the devastating 34-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah.  No comment was immediately available from Israel.  Many Lebanese had received similar phone messages urging them not to support Hezbollah during the course of the war which killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.  The news comes a day after the bodies of two Israeli soldiers were exchanged for five Lebanese prisoners and the remains of almost 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters.

By Hussein Abdallah,  BEIRUT: Lebanon announced a 30-member national unity government on Friday after almost five weeks of disputes over the distribution of portfolios. The lineup was announced in a decree signed by President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora following a short meeting between them and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.  The formation of the Cabinet came in line with the accord sealed in Doha on May 21 which allocated 16 cabinet seats to the parliamentary majority, 11 to the opposition, and three to the president.

The opposition took the coveted posts of foreign minister, telecommunications minister and deputy premier in the new Cabinet, while the ruling bloc kept the Finance Ministry.  The president, who himself only took office four days after the Doha accord, filling a post left vacant since November, made three appointments, including Elias Murr, who kept the defense portfolio despite opposition reservations.  He also appointed lawyer and electoral law expert Ziyad Baroud to head the Interior Ministry, which will be responsible for organizing legislative elections next year.  Finance Minister Mohammad Shatah, who was appointed by the ruling bloc, served as Siniora’s senior adviser in the previous cabinet.  The government includes one woman, MP Bahia Hariri, sister of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. She is to head the Education Ministry.  Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun, whose party had not been represented in the previous government, took four posts in the new one, plus the deputy premiership.  Hizbullah was allocated three seats in the Cabinet, but only one of them went to a Hizbullah member – Labor Minister Mohammad Fneish.